Chronodophobia
by Tib Dunncan
Summary: Chronodophobia: Fear of Time Travel. Cael Claw is chronodophobic, and a bitter case at that. Her physics teacher, Mr. Luzinsky, suggested that she help one of his brother's students on a project on time travel. She must be insane - because she accepted.
1. Chapter 1

"And what did you learn from this section, kids?"

Mr. Luzinsky's class was just finishing section 18 in their physics book, the chapter covering the nonlinear dynamics, the Butterfly effect.

Andrew raised his hand, "That Cael needs to go back to elementary school. Time travel DOESN'T EXIST."

Cael Claw sunk down into her chair. Why did they have to? It was as if every kid who asked her WHAT chronophobia was felt entitled to mock her for it. As if to prove her point, several of the kids sitting around her laughed.

"Andrew, uncalled for. Detention, for a week. Think it was worth it?"

"Dunno, let me go back in time, re-do, and find out."

"Three weeks, Mr. Gardner. See me after class. You too, Cael."

"You could learn a thing or two from Cael, Andrew."

"Coward Claw? Don't think so." The boy said as he signed the slip telling his parents he had three weeks' detention. "Thanks for the tip, though. I'll keep it in mind." And he left.

The room was empty by now, but she still sat in her seat, on the other side of the room from Mr. Luzinsky's desk. "Cael?" he motioned for her to come. Cael stood and walked over to her teacher. "Cael, you know, you're absolutely right. If you're not careful, there's no telling what would happen with time travel."

"But they're right, too. It's a stupid, irrational fear. Time travel doesn't exist, and it probably never will."

"Then why are you scared of it?"

She didn't say anything.

"Cael, you're a bright student of mine, and I want you to know that, but in this particular case, you're as correct as Andrew was. My brother, Phillip, works out of state, and he was telling me about a student of his. He's a bit of a prodigy. And, as a matter of fact, his student has been working on a project and was looking for a volunteer. No one around town really wants to help, but Phillip's looked at his work and everything looks safe."

Her teacher handed her a printed out email. "You know they say that the best was to get rid of you fear is to face it outright. This could be the perfect opportunity."

She took the email, which gave directions and the kid's address. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm completely serious!" Mr. Luzinsky said, "Phil said that his student is one of the smartest people he knows, but needs some help on the project. He'd let anyone help, at this point. I think you'd be perfect. Give it some thought, huh?"

"Alright," Cael said, skimming over the paper, "But it's not gonna be pretty."

"And try not to be so pessimistic. You might actually like it. Come on." He patted her on the back as he headed out of the classroom, with Cael in tow. Her teacher was nothing short of insane.

SHE was nothing short of insane, she thought as she boarded the bus with her luggage. She'd agreed to help Phillip's student, and was on her way.

The neighborhood was nice, but she still felt uneasy going down the street. She felt like a traitor, knowing what she was doing. She read the address on the paper, and then re read it, given her dyslexia.

Ding, Dong!

About three minutes later, a woman with red hair came to the door, wearing yellow rubber cleaning gloves.

"Hi, ma'am. I'm Cael Claw. I-"

"Oh, you must be here to help Dexter with his little science project. Yes, he told us someone from out of town was coming. Come on in, I think he's in his room." She stepped inside, and Cael followed. "So, where are you from?"

"Minnesota, ma'am. My teacher and Dexter's teacher are brothers, apparently. Paul Luzinsky."

"Lovely." She turned toward the stairs. "Dexter? You're lab partner from Minnesota is here!" she called.

A few moments later, a younger boy wearing a lab coat came bounding towards the stairs. "Hello," he said, suddenly composed. "Cael?" She nodded. "Okay, come upstairs, will you? I can't leave my project unattended for too long, my sister might get at it."

Cael climbed the stairs and followed the boy into his bedroom. "How old are you?" she asked.

"Thirteen, why?"

She was a good three years older than him. "Mr. Luzinsky told me that you were working on time travel."

"I am," he replied.

Cael was starting to feel awkward and stupid, standing in the middle of this thirteen year old boy's bedroom, expecting to see a time machine. Right…

Dexter pulled at a few books on the shelf on the wall opposite her, and the entire wall slid to the side, revealing another room, a lab.

"My laboratory." He said, sweeping his arm around the enormous room.

Her astonishment must have showed, because when he looked back at her still standing in the bedroom, he smiled wryly. A few steps forward and the secret door silently slid shut behind her.

"What do you think?"

"Speechless…" she said, quietly. "You built all of this yourself?"

"Yes… there would be more, but my stupid sister gets in here every so often and effectively destroys my creations." There was a certain tone of pride to his voice, which she figured he was rightly entitled to.

"Does anyone know about this?"

"Of course. You, my sister DeeDee, and Mandark."

"All right…"

"Now, your teacher sent me an email telling me about your hesitance, and I'll let you know there's nothing to worry about."

"I have complete confidence in your machine, it's just… I'm a bit of a chronodophobe. That is, I'm afraid of-"

"I know what it means, Cael." He said, not unkindly. "You don't have to worry. I'll only be sending you about an hour into the future. Just to test out the technology."

Dexter led her through the lab, over to a chamber set, one empty and the other with a set of controls worthy of NASA.

"Just step in there." he helped her into the chamber to the best of his ability, given the height difference. "And I'll be with you in a moment."

The heavy metal door swung shut, leaving her alone in the chamber.

The walls glowed blue, providing light, even though there was no discernable source.

"Computress, establish a holographic visual for chamber B." She heard Dexter say, through an equally invisible speaker.

Moments later, the boy's image flickered on in front of her. "There we go." He said, "Thank you for volunteering. I'll need you to input your data before we begin." Another screen appeared over Dexter's image, and Cael put in her information by touching the appropriate points on the screen. 5'3'', 115 lbs, no prior medical history, the kind of information that would be taken at a check-up at the doctor's. Eventually, the Personal Data screen disappeared, and Dexter was back. "Okay, I'm going to start the machine now. You may feel a little bump."

The room lurched and Cael had to hold onto her seat in order not to fall off.

A little bump? The whole chamber was shaking!

On the other end, Dexter was ecstatic. "Wow! Are you seeing theses readings?!? A fine day for science, indeed!"

The boy was so engrossed in his machine, he obviously didn't see the older blonde girl peeking onto the screen behind his back. However, Cael, with nothing BUT the screen to focus on, did see her. Cael opened her mouth to say something, but the blonde girl hushed her, giggling almost silently. Cael wasn't used to going against anyone's orders, so she hushed.

The blonde girl was off screen again when she heard over the rumbling, "Oohh! What's THIS button do?"

The tremors inside the chamber got worse. Frowning, Dexter looked up and then over at the girl, his expression going form disgruntled to alarmed – too alarmed for Cael's liking.

"DeeDee, No!" The boy ran off screen, in the direction that his sister had disappeared to.

""Dexter, this isn't funny!" The girl gripped the edge of her seat, her knuckles white. "Dexter!" she shouted, barely able to hear herself over the noise inside the chamber.

There was an explosion from somewhere in chamber A, another explosion in her chamber, a bright blue light, a sharp pain in her head, and Cael was unconscious.

Dexter got his sister away from his controls, and rushed back to the screen, which was now a black and white fuzz. "Cael? Cael, can you hear me?"

Dexter played frantically with the controls. "Computress, what happened?"

"Error: Cael was sent much farther into the future than you intended, Dexter."

"Where is she? What year?"

"2012."

Great. Just fabulous.

"DeeDee, I want you out of my laboratory this instant! Do you have any idea what you've just done?" he shouted at his sister, making his throat hoarse.

Admittedly, DeeDee had never seen her little brother so mad about her in his lab before. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he'd been working with another human being, who was now who-knows-where, or the fact that his time machine, which he'd been working on for almost two years, was now in pieces. Either way, she decided to heed his warning and get out.

Once sure that his sister was out of his laboratory and was not going to come back in, Dexter turned back to his controls, seemed to think for a moment, then sighed, his emotions tuning quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

Cael woke up. Loud noises were coming from somewhere close by, and she could hear footfalls coming closer to her.

The girl opened her eyes and saw two kids, approximately her age, running over a hill towards her.

A girl in blue and a boy with a green jacket on. Both came to a stop in front of her. Cael stood.

"Holy Cannolli! Where'd you come from?" the girl asked.

"Not now, Number Five. We need to get moving. Come on," The boy motioned for her to follow them, and he and who she assumed was 'Number Five' took off, back over the hill. No one else was around, so she followed them.

She was sorry she did. Right over that hill was a nightmare. A deformed green monster roared, for lack of better term, and headed straight for them. The boy tossed her a weapon. Apparently, they wanted her to fight the thing. Cael squeezed the trigger as the monster advanced on her. Nothing. She pulled harder and the barrel of the gun erupted in a fantastical light show of sparks and some sort of energy, which she almost sure wasn't electricity. It might have been, but her head was still a little fuzzy.

Between her attack, Number Five's and the boy's the monster fell down dead.

"Good shootin'." The girl said, adjusting her red cap. "Hey… I know you… Ben, she's that kid from the past!"

"You?" The boy named Ben asked. "You're Cael Claw?"

"Yes." She said shakily. "Ben… what year is it?" she asked, looking around frantically and shaking her head.

"2012. Ironic, no? Come on back to Tech Square. Dexter'll be happy to see you."

"Dexter? He's here?" Cael's heart leapt, only to plummet back down to her stomach as she saw another wave of monsters coming their way.

"You go ahead in front of her, I'll hold 'em back," Number Five said, brandishing her weapons.

"Come on," Ben said, running out in front of Cael.

She really wanted to ask what was going on, what all these monsters were, but since they were all running for their lives, she figured it could wait.

Ben led her to a more urban area, where more kids were fighting off these green monsters. A girl in a green outfit who was apparently flying, an kid with a pair of dark sunglasses whose head was shaved, and –

"Dexter!"

He looked over at their small group momentarily, before blasting the monster again. She and Ben took a few shots and the monster fell down dead and dissolved into a green goo, much like the last one had.

The redhead holstered his weapons, and turned to Ben, Number Five and Cael. When he saw her, his hard expression was immediately gone. "Cael! Boy, am I glad to see you! I didn't know when you'd show – ouch!"

Cael had punched him none too gently in the stomach. "You lied! You said you were only going to send me forward an HOUR! 2012!?! Really, Dexter?" she shouted.

"I'm sorry, Cael. There was an accident in my laboratory that day. I had only MEANT to send you an hour into the future. I never intended for this to happen."

Cael was visibly shaking now, breathing hard through her nose. Dexter, not knowing that this was out of pure terror, and not anger towards him, took a few steps back. "Why don't you come with me to Sector Five? It's a more secure area than Tech Square, the most we'd have to deal with is fusion spawn. Hardly even a threat."

Cael nodded and took off after Dexter and Number Five.

Despite her fear, she was blessed with spikes of energy at the moment, as opposed to fatigue that one should experience when deathly frightened and running for your life.

"Jeeze, Kid, you're really shaking. Calm down, I'm afraid you're gonna hurt yourself."

"What's going on? What ARE those things?!?" she exclaimed, frantic. Okay, maybe the excess energy wasn't such a good thing.

"Those were fusion monsters." Dexter said, coming back to the park bench they'd all been sitting on with a few items. He pointed up, towards the sky, attracting her gaze. Cael gasped. What could you see from Earth as far as heavenly bodies went? The sun. The moon. One or two planets that looked like stars, and millions of starts themselves. Last time she checked, 'horribly deformed, green planet that appeared to be four times the size of Jupiter' was not on that list. Yet, there it was.

"Planet Fusion." Dexter said, looking at her. "Appeared in our sky about a month after the accident." 'The accident' meant 'the time travel,' there was no question about it. He unfolded the blanket he'd brought with him and placed it around her shoulders. Still, the shaking didn't subside. She was terrified, it wouldn't for some time.

Dexter handed her two more objects, a small calculator and something that looked like a digitalized canister. "Taros, like money," he said, pointing to the calculator. "Easier to use than actual money, and it's used worldwide. This way, no matter where you are, you can get supplies."

"And the Canister?"

"Fusion Matter."

Cael almost dropped it, causing Dexter to place a hand protectively underneath the canister. "I don't want THAT," she nearly shrieked. Yeah, that's it. Give her liquidated monsters.

"Yes, you do. While I agree, the actual fusion monsters are nothing to be happy to receive, the fusion matter is another story: It'll help you, trust me."

Cael fastened both items to her belt. "Don't know why I do." She shook her head.

"But you do, and that makes me happy."

"That all fine and dandy, Dex, but what are we gonna do about her?"

"Cael is going to have to go back to the past." he addressed Number Five, then looked back at Cael. "The time machine was broken after the accident. I haven't had time to fully rebuild another one, yet, though I have got the foundations down."

"You're gonna haffta finish it, because Dexter's needed on the frontline." The other girl said. He stood up. "All right," Dexter started to leave, then seemed to remember something. "I almost forgot," He reached into his pocket and produced a small, circular piece of technology. "Your NanoCom. I programmed it especially for you, if you'd ever show up. You can communicate with Computress through your NanoCom. She'll act as a guide until we can get you back to the past. You can also keep track of your progress though it. It'll log any achievements you've made while here, and any advancement in the time portal. There's also a map, and you can communicate with any of the others on the frontline, as well as anyone you program into your NanoCom. There are a lot of others that've heard of you, here. Making allies shouldn't be a problem. Good luck!"

"No. You're not serious; I don't know the first thing about time travel, except that it scares the living daylights out of me!"

"What's to be scared of? You've survived, haven't you?"

"Have you seen those things out there?!? Not for long!"

"You'll be fine. I'm sure of it," Dexter squeezed her shoulder in what he hopped came across as a friendly gesture and not him just disregarding her, before he turned again and took off, along with Number Five.

"Good luck, Kid!" she called over her shoulder.

Cael stood there in stunned silence. She jumped when her NanoCom beeped in her hand. Great, was her first thought. She didn't even know how to work it! However, the device turned itself on.

"Cael Claw, I am Computress, Dexter's technological assistant. I' glad to see that you've made it safely into the future. Unfortunately, things are not well here. Come meet me on the other side of Sector Five for more information. As I'm sure Dexter has already told you, there's a map on your NanoCom in case you lose your bearings."

The screen went black again. Don't anybody tell her how to ACSESS the map she'd been hearing so much about.

Cael took a deep breath. Well, they'd come into Sector Five from the West, so she decided to travel Due East. Maybe if she was lucky, she would be able to find Computress.

So, without further adu, she shrugged out from under the blanket and headed – what she assumed was – East.

Cael was grateful for her weapon, because the 'fusion spawn', as Dexter had referred to them, were relentless against her. A few shots to the little green blobs and they'd disappear into the ground as that same goop that the others had. Each time she'd defeat one of the spawn, her canister would give a little electronic beep, its fusion matter count going up a few ticks each time, as well as the Taros count on her calculator.

Once, she came across another human. He was running the other way, and he looked like he was in a hurry. She hated to stop him, but…

"Excuse me!" she called. The boy stopped, looking back at her. "Uhm, hi. I'm sort of new around here. I'm looking for Computress, Dexter's assistant. She told me to meet her on the other side of Sector Five, but…"

The kid nodded. "Just keep heading up that way and you'll come to a bit of a city. She's there."

"Thanks," Cael smiled wryly as the boy took off again. She turned back east and headed towards this city, Sector Five.

Eventually (eventually meaning many fusion spawn later,) she came across a small community. Cael wandered the streets and followed the general direction of the congregations of people coming out of the city. Follow where people are leaving form, get to where you need to go.

There was a large building in Sector Five that she came across, and upon walking around the building, she saw a blue woman's figure – Computress.

Cael broke into a run towards the robot. Finally!


	3. Chapter 3

Computress turned towards Cael as she approached. "Hello, Cael. Good to see that you were able to find your way here." She said kindly.

"No kidding."

"Dexter told me that he needed help rebuilding the time capsule so that we can get you back to the past. Unfortunately, it still needs quite a bit of work, but everyone here is working towards the same cause – to stop Fuse, the king of Planet Fusion. I apologize on Dexter's behalf. He wanted to be able to explain everything to you himself, but time simply did not permit." She said. "Even we are not sure exactly what happened, but we believe it was something along these lines: When DeeDee caused the explosion in Dexter's laboratory, something else happened, that one could realte to as a wormhole in the universe. Unfortunately for us, the wormhole captured Planet fuse in its force and brought it too close to Earth. Fuse saw Earth as fuel for his planet, and immediately send fusion matter down to scope out our planet.

"Ben Tennyson was the fist one to come across the Fusion Matter, what with his fighting aliens already. Neither he nor his friends could figure out what it was, so they took the matter to Dexter, who, through an accident during testing, found that the fusion matter could take the form of any living cells they pleased, allowing them to take the form of any human on Earth. Even the super powered ones."

"Super powered death machines. Great…"

"Exactly." Computress said. "They've already taken the form of many of our heroes, And Planet Fusion has absorbed much of Earth already. We think we may be able to stop the invasion if we can get you back to the past, Cael."

"How far into the past? No further than where I left from, right?"

"Perhaps. It all depends."

Cael's stomach lurched upon hearing this. No way was she being sent further back than the accident. No.

"You'll have to trust Dexter's judgment, Cael Claw."

She did trust his judgment… right? Well, granted, it was a bit shaky at the moment, given she was in year 2012, but in general, yes, she did.

"I do, but…"

"Good. There are many heroes here. See if you can do anything for them. They'll all be happy to help you, but if you perform favors for them, they may give you a reward.

"Kay… Where IS everyone, though?"

"They're on the other side of the town, in Poaky Oaks North. It's not far from here," Computress said, pointing in a vague direction.

"Alright. You can… Tell Dexter that it's no problem and that I totally understand," she said awkwardly to the robot as she turned. It was weird being so sincere to Computress, even though Cael knew that Dexter had programmed her almost as a human being.

She knew that he really did feel bad about all this happening. She could see it in his face when they were in the park on the other side of Sector Five.

Cael hurried to wherever she was going, breaking out into a run.

Dexter Shot the Fusion monster. If he didn't get back to his lab, there'd be no way he'd be able to find out any more about these monsters – no way they'd be able to fight back.

Number Five had disappeared in the midst of the fight, along with Ben. This was the opposite of good. Dexter needed to get back to the town in hopes of regrouping, not being alone…

Something caught his eye as he blasted his last monster: Buttercup, halfway down the walk, waving frantically at him. Dexter's heart leapt and he took off after the young girl, who was already flying away.

He was running at full force, the Fusion Monsters oddly ceasing in their numbers behind him.

His ribs and chest were aching now; Buttercup was so far ahead of him - did she not see that he was a mile behind her? Dexter's foot caught on a rock on the ground and he lurched forward, hitting the pebbly ground hard, scraping his neck and face. "Buttercup, wait!" He picked himself up and ran after her.

The young girl did not stop, didn't even slow down.

His breathing became a wheeze. Buttercup was gone, out of sight.

He though he had been in a bad situation before? Now, he didn't even know where he was!

Dexter stood there, panting from exhaustion. He'd have to wait a while before he could keep going, that fall had knocked whatever wind was in him, out.

Something felt wrong. The boy turned around and nearly had a heart attack upon seeing the young girl behind him. "Buttercup, why on Earth did you-" He stopped, seeing that it was not Buttercup.

Even though she did look like Buttercup, the young girl's outfit was a jet black, her skin a sickly, toxic green.

The Fusion Monster's eyes glowed a piercing red and Dexter felt the bottom of his stomach drop out.

Fusion Buttercup darted forward with inhuman speed and wrapped her fist around the boy's arm like a vice.

The fusion matter that she was made of burned him, seeped through his lab coat and made his very bones feel like they were on fire. Not even the worst Toxic Waste from his lab felt like this.

The room started to swoon and Buttercup tightened her grip.

Number Five was worried. Dexter had been separated from the battle group when they were fighting the Fusion. She hoped he was okay. She really did…

She saw Cael running into the square, which gave her an idea.

"Hey, Kid! Glad to see you made it here in one piece. Come across any Fusion Spawn?"

"Plenty" Cael said, "Thankfully, they're not that hard to get rid of…"

"Yeah, well, wish I could say that for all the Fusion Monsters. Hey, listen, can you do me a favor?"

This reminded her of Computress's advice. "Sure, what do you need?"

"Well, there's a Map of Pokey Oaks somewhere in the Infected Zone. I sort of dropped it while we were closing that place off. Do ya think maybe you could go get it?"

"Sure," Cael shrugged. "Uhm… Can you just tell me one thing?"

"What?"

"How do you access the map on the NanoCom?" she held hers out.

The KND agent took the NanoCom and pressed a button on the side. "Third button on the left. Then you can press it again for a zoom," she demonstrated and then handed the device back to Cael, who took it, happy to have started learning how to use her NanoCom.

"Thanks, Number Five. I had no clue how to use it and have been asking for directions…"

"Anytime, Claw." She said as Cael took off towards the infected Zones.

Jeeze, Dexter was gonna KILL her for sending Cael into an infected zone, but they needed to get that map back before the fusion got a hold of it, otherwise they'd have complete map of the KND defenses.

She'd've gone herself, but Buttercup still wasn't back from KND headquarters and she needed to stay and help organize the volunteers.

Her NanoCom beeped.

Number Five clicked open the transmission and gasped. A beaten looking Dexter was on the other end.

Cael jumped onto the platform. And another. And anoth- Whoops! She had lost her footing and fell to the ground below. She fell in a puddle of green… water?

No, it wasn't water, it had more of the consistency of Nickelodeon slime.

The girl jumped out of the puddle. Plus, water never HURT so bad. A few of the kids with her inside the Infected zone stared quizzically at her, as if what she had just done was widely known to cause so much pain.

Well, that was the price she was gona haffta pay for being the new kid in town.

That was something else she had noticed, she thought as she made her way back to the first platform – this entire operation was seemingly run by Kids. No adults whatsoever.

Cael stopped halfway back to the starting point – something in the goo on the ground had caught her eye. It was sticking halfway out of a puddle. Cael bent down to examine it… It was a piece of rolled paper… The map.

Claw picked up the map carefully, as it was covered in the same stuff that had just burned her. She'd just spent fifteen minutes jumping around thinking that the map was on one of the platforms…

Ah, well. She turned, nearly slipping in the muck, and headed back for the warp gate out of the Infected Zone.

The warp pads were a light blue, as most of Dexter's tech seemed to be.

"Lovely weather we're having," the Dexbot said, trying to make light of where they were.

Cael smiled at the robot, knowing that, like Computress, the boy had programmed it to act, to be, human. Just more efficient and useful. But she had to get the map back to Number Five, the goop on the paper was starting to seep downwards and burn her skin.

Dexter sat on a rock, rather depressed. He'd called Number Five over twenty minutes ago. Fusion Buttercup hadn't killed him, thank god, just knocked him out cold and senseless. But he wasn't sure if that would last – if Buttercup came back, he was dead for sure.

He'd wandered around the cavern, and had even found a jump gate between the fusion's lair and the infected Zone outside… but Fusion Buttercup had sealed that off, making sure it was a one-way only. Making sure that she could get in, and that Dexter couldn't get out.

So, he was stuck there until someone decided to come get him, and help him fight off Fusion Buttercup. There was another warp gate on the other side of the cave, he just knew it. There had to be – how else would Fusion Buttercup have gotten out of the lair in the first place?

Cael handed Number Five the good end of the map. "Nice work, Kid,' she said, pocketing the map, "Check your inventory on your NanoCom, I sent you something."

"My NanoCom has an inventory?"

Number Five laughed, "Yeah, I guess we should've told you more about it, huh?"

"I'm fine, it's just I don't know really how to use it."

"You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure." Number Five shifted uneasily. "Hey, Claw: I gotta stay here till Buttercup can get here. Do you think you can do one more thing?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"Well, right after you left, Dexter sent me a transmission-"

"What;d he say?"

'He said he was trapped in a fusion lair. I'd go get him myself, but like I said, I can't leave. We need to get him outta there before Fusion Buttercup decides to do more damage. What do you say?"

"Well, where is he?"

"He's in a Fusion Lair in the Infected Zone by Pokey Oaks Junior High. There's a warp gate to get there, it looks like Dexter's, only run by a fusion drone and it's green."

"Okay,"

"When you get in there, you should be able to find him, but you guys won't be able to get back the way you came. Good luck," Number Five called after the girl who was already running back toward the Pokey Oaks infected Zone.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a high pitched sound and Dexter jumped. His inattentiveness made so that he didn't even know what direction it had come from. The boy turned towards Fusion Buttercup's lair and readied himself.

"Hey,"

Dexter swung his arm around, alarmed, and Cael ducked, causing his fist to slam into solid rock. He ignored the blooming pain in his hand, more astonished at who was standing in front of him. "Cael, what are you doing here?"

"Number Five told me about you being stuck down here and I-"

"Are you KIDDING me?!" he exclaimed, frazzled. "SHE told you to come here? For crine out loud, I told her to keep you AWAY from here!" The boy started pacing back and forth, wringing his hands.

"Hey… Hey, Dexter – calm down, please! It's okay…" Cael tried to stop him and get him to look her in the eye, but he wouldn't look up from the black ash floor.

"No, it's not! We're stuck here now, without any way out, I told her to keep you out of here," Dexter took out his NanoCom and stated playing with the dials, trying to contact another agent.

"Look, Number Five told me that there was another warp gate out of here, all we have to do is find it," Cael suggested.

"I already know where the second warp gate is, Cael – the problem is that it's on the other side of Fusion Buttercup's lair, and to get to the other warp gate, we'd have to encounter the fusion monster."

That WAS a bit of a setback, she thought, sighing. "Well… We'll just have to fight, won't we?" Cael walked past Dexter, grabbing his arm and pulling him after her.

"No," Dexter said, pulling away, "The point of your being here is so that we can get you home, not so you can DIE,"

"Please, I think I've died at least three times here."

Dexter looked at her. "You… You're joking, right?"

"No. One of your friend, Grim, set up these nifty recall spots all over what's left of the world."

The boy's expression relaxed a bit, relieved of that problem. "Oh, yes. Resurrect 'Ems. I nearly forgot about those. Well, at least you're learning the ropes. You'll be back in your own time in no time."

"Hope so." She said. There was a moment's pause. "Well… are we gonna do this thing?"

"What?" he caught wind of what she was talking about – defeating Fusion Buttercup – and immediately opposed. "Damn. I just told you I was concerned with your safety, and you're still willing to drag yourself to Hell like that?"

"Language, Mister," she said.

Dexter took a breath. "I'm sorry. Things are just going the exactly the opposite way I was hoping for today."

"Do tell. I mean, besides being stuck in a toxic monster's hideout." She grabbed his sleeve and led him onwards as he talked.

"If the fact that we're in this _stoopeed_ war isn't bad enough, now we're fighting it with our enemies!"

"Well, this is their world too; they must want to protect it as much as you guys do."

"Yes, but have you ever even met Mandark?" he shuddered. "The boy does not shut up about how superior to everyone he is."

"Ha, sounds like my old classmate, Andrew."

Dexter shook his head. "No, you have no idea the extent of his arrogance."

"Prob'ly not, considering where I am at the moment. But, then again, I don't have much of an idea about anything going on right n-"

Dexter clapped her hand over her mouth, silencing her. "The Fusion." He mouthed.

Cael took her small weapon out of her holster, her hands shaking.

"Scared?" Dexter asked.

"No. I'm just about to go up against a psychopathic monster who could possibly kill me. Nope." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. She tended to do that in a stressful situation.

"You'll be okay." He peeked around the corner. Fusion Buttercup was turned the other way, so he motioned for Cael to follow him. Dexter took out of his labcoat pocket as small device the size and shape of an Epipen. Silently, it expanded to a weapon at least twenty times its original size, closely resembling a wrench.

Both kids crept up behind the fusion monster, Dexter taking the first strike at it with his Melee, and Cael following up with a few dozen shots from the weapon that Number Five had given her. Without much effort, the monster fell down dead, dematerializing into the same goo that the fusion spawn had…

Suddenly, the mass began to glow, and Cael jumped back, brandishing her weapon. "Don't worry," Dexter said, seeming completely indifferent to the Fusion. "It's just a nano."

Cael heard the click click click of her fusion matter count drop, as the little green mass hovering over Fusion Buttercup's body took form.

"This is why I told you Fusion Matter would come in handy. It's quite helpful in creating nanos." At last, the nano was completely tangible, and appeared to be a small girl in green. "Cael – this is Nano Buttercup, your very first Nano. Congratulations." As fast as the nano had come, she started to dematerialize in front of Cael; at the same instance, her NanoCom let out an almost melodic tune.

"Taking a wild shot here, but she's stored in my NanoCom, right?"

"You're picking up quickly." He said, the slightest tone of pride in his voice.

"Cool. And I'm not dead. See how easy that was?"

"Yes, Cael, but that was Buttercup. Her Fusion Counterpart was fairly weak compared to the others because Buttercup is still young," they continued down the stretch of cave. "It's the others you want to be cautious around. They'll take no time in decapitating you."

"Wait – if you're killed by a fusion, do you still get redirected to a resurrect Em?

"Yes."

"Oh." She said her voice small.

Both kids walked on in silence for a few moments. "Uhm…" he muttered under his breath.

"Something on your mind?"

"I'm just realizing that I didn't really get the chance to apologize back at Tech Square."

"Appologize? For what?"

"Cael, you missed three years of your life and are in the middle of an interplanetary war," he said blankly. He knew she was just trying to be nice, but it wasn't working. "Don't be _stoopeed_."

"Alright, I was a little vexed when I found out. But it's okay, really. No harm done."

"Let's get you back to the past, then you can say that."

Soon, the pair had come up to another warp gate, the same as the first; green sets of tentacles protruding from the surface. "Go on ahead." He said to Cael. "I want to put my wrench away first." Upon which he stated to unscrew each individual section of the weapon.

"Kay." She said, as the green tentacles enveloped her, the underground cavern dissipating and being promptly replaced by the Pokey Oaks infected Zone. The whole thing was quiet, quite a few other kids simply standing around, looking at the warp pad.

Not long afterwards, Dexter came up behind her. "Congratulations, Miss Claw. Come on, let's go – I need to talk to Number Five."

The kids in the immediate area looked at each other, unbelieving. Cael sighed. She would have given anything for him not to have done that.

She had an uneasy feeling that Dexter was going to scorn Number Five for sending her into the infected zone at all, let alone letting her into the Fusion's lair.

"Uhm… Dexter?" She had to nearly run in order to keep up with him, he was walking with such intent. "Please, don't say anything to her about sending me into the Fusion's cave."

"What she did was reckless!" He steamed; she caught him by the arm.

"Listen. You're gonna stop." She said, not really sure it had come out of her mouth. "You're making a big deal out of nothing. I'm fighting in this war now, I'm going to have to fight as hard as any one else." This felt strange, telling him what was going to happen.

"You don't understand what's going on. I realize that you're learning everything as you go along, but as far as matters between me and other agents go, I would appreciate it if you would stay out of it. You're not here to fight. You're here to rebuild the time machine. Leave it at that."

She frowned deeply. "No." she said firmly. He tore his arm away from Cael's grip and turned to face her.

"Do you see any other agents as young as yourself? No, because they were all your age when this began! Each and every one of these warriors have been fighting since the war began; they're more experienced than you are!"

Cael looked at him, somber. "You don't think I can handle myself here?" she asked icily.

"I KNOW you can't. The time travel has shaken you too far. You're not reasonable, and your judgment has been far off, from what I've seen. You don't have any fighting experience, and you hardly know the situation…"

Cael looked away. All this was true, she admitted to herself. But that didn't mean she couldn't at least try. She wasn't in any real danger, and so long as she learned…

"You're wrong, Dexter." She said, taking off in the direction of the warp pad out of the infected zone. She leapt over a puddle of toxic fusion matter, heading up the hill, back to the beginning of the obstacle course.

Several of the kids were still standing around, having just watched the report between the two. Some dispersed, others stayed to see what Dexter would do.

He simply turned and headed to the warp gate opposite the entrance.


	5. Chapter 5

Cael was now well into the town. She was headed right back to Number Five, hopeful to reach her before Dexter did. What she was planning to do once she got there? She hadn't yet gotten to that part of her plan.

She stopped dead in her tracks. A swarm of Fusion spawn was headed down the narrow street that she found herself on. She took a stance and unholstered her weapon, took aim and pulled the trigger – and nothing happened.

Consequently, one of the spawn spotted her and charged full force down the street, the rest following suit.

She backed up and took off running.

This was not good, this was the opposite of good - this was bad. Cael ran, stumbling over her own feet, eventually tripping over the pavement and hitting the cracked back asphalt with a thud. The spawn swarmed all over her, biting her and tearing at her hair. They were such little things, but the density of the fusion matter that they were composed of made it impossible for her to stand up. Furthermore, the toxicity of their make up burned her, even through her clothes. Granted, she was wearing a cotton tee and rugged jeans, but…

All at once, there was a high pitched whine and several pops, and the weight slowly lifted off of her as the spawn were obliterated.

Cael looked up from the ground. A younger boy with spiky orange hair was holstering his weapon, which looked like it could kill a lot bigger monsters than fusion spawn. She stood up, wiping as much mud as she could off of her torn clothes. "Thanks," she said, slowly.

The boy stooped down and picked up the dented and mangled piece that had been her weapon. "I believe this is yours?" He handed it to her. She felt herself blush. "Guess it is…"

"Can I ask one simple question?" he tilted his head, looking her up and down.

"Sure,"

"What on Earth were you thinking when you left base this morning?"

Cael looked at him blankly for a moment before smiling awkwardly and laughing. "Not what you'd expect."

"I'd expect you wanted to get yourself killed by these things. Whatever you're wearing, it certainly wasn't Dexlab armor."

No kidding, she thought, trying to make her torn sleeve stay on her shoulder. "Look, I'm not very experienced…"

"I can see that," the boy smiled. "But experienced or not, you can't run around like that," he gestured to her outfit, "and with no weapon to boot. C'mon."

He turned and headed away from her. Hesitantly, Cael followed. "Excuse me!" she called to the boy, who was already a good block ahead of her. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. "Where, exactly, are we going?"

"Back to the cul-de-sac." This was met with another blank stare. He scoffed at her. "At least tell me you've been to the cul-de-sac. Experienced or not, that's where all the kids live."

Cael shook her head kindly. "I'm new to these parts," she said, not untruthfully. "I just got here this morning."

"What do you mean you just got here this morning? Where'd you 'get here' from?" he asked, exasperated. She frowned in confusion. The boy sighed. "There's only six towns left. Peach Creek is the only one that houses soldiers. Eddy told me, himself!"

Cael shrugged. "It's… complicated." She said, sheepishly. "Who's Eddy?"

"He's one of the kids who originally lived in Peach Creek." He said as they continued. "He runs the cul-de-sac, now. The entire place is surrounded by a cardboard fortress his friend, Edd built."

"Okay." She said, understanding most of the story. Only, what she didn't get was what use a cardboard fort was in such a war. "Oh," she exclaimed, "I don't believe I caught you're name!"

"Huh?" he looked back at her, as if surprised by her question, then realized she was serious. "Oh. Uh, Son… Venvor."

The fortress was nearly ten stories tall, tightly packed and surrounded the entire Estates. Cael believed she understood now.

She and Son slipped through the two giant wooden planks that served as doors to the fortress. Much unlike the deserted tows she'd been traveling through for the last few hours, the cul-de-sac was bustling with activity. Kids ranging in age and appearance mingled on the streets, going in and out of the houses that, Cael noticed, were in a much fairer condition than those outside of the fortress. In one drive way, what appeared to be a bus with airplane wings and a helicopter rotor had the word 'Scamper' crudely painted on the door.

So, this was basically the base of the entire operation… she though as they went deeper into the neighborhood.

Cael gasped. In the center of the cul-de-sac was a giant machine, holographic projectors – or at least that's what they looked like – sprouted at every angle.

Underneath the great machine was another teenaged boy, who was sitting above the crowd's heads, on what appeared to be a cardboard throne.

"Venvor! Did you get my money from that cheapskate Joey yet?"

Son jumped onto the platform and handed Eddy an old sweat sock. "He said he didn't have any money. So he gave me this."

Eddy contemplated for a moment. "Worth at LEAST two fifty!" he exclaimed, pocketing the piece, though how he had come to that conclusion, Cael was unsure.

"Eddy?" Son jabbed a thumb back at Cael. "I think we have a problem…"

"We? What makes you say WE have a problem? YOU picked some rouge chick up off the streets, she's YOUR problem." He said, ultimately uninterested.

Eddy took a good look at the time traveler and frowned. "Hey, kid! What's your name?"

Cael felt herself shrink. "My name's Cael Claw…" she said, uncertainly.

The boy on the cardboard throne seemed to think for a moment. Then, you could practically see the light bulb switch on over his head. "I know you! You're that kid Dexter was telling us about!"

Venvor spun back around to face her. "You know Dexter?" he asked. It seemed that it was unusual for a common soldier to know the boy genius. She took a deep breath.

"Yes, actually, I do… why?" she asked, slowly.

"Not important," Eddy interrupted. "Venvor, do you KNOW who this is?"

"Not particularly," he said, finding it an extremely stupid question.

"This is the kid Carrot Top was telling us was coming from the past." Eddy said, smiling. "From BEFORE the war started."

"Which would explain her lack of armor." Son concluded.

"So why don't YOU take her down to the markets, introduce her to the rangers, and let her get some armor." Eddy looked at Cael. "You got money, right?"

She unclipped the calculator from her belt. "Taros?" she asked, unsure.

"That'll do!" the boy exclaimed happily, jumping off the throne and pushing the other two kids toward the market area of the cul-de-sac.

Cael looked at the armor on the screens. Ah, the future… she thought as she pressed the screen, which directed her to the next page. All the armor looked like regular clothing… well most of it did, anyway.

"See anything you like?" Venvor asked, coming up behind her with what looked like a simple metal box that attaches to one's belt.

"I don't understand…" she said, "The Button Holster top gives more protection than the (inset name of long-sleeved shirt here)? How do they figure?"

"It's a whole bunch of factors. That's the Sooper Halter. It's Standard, Sooper, and Sooper Dooper. And that's only a standard (Long sleeve). It all comes down to what kind of material they are."

"Oh."

"There's also the Holosuit. Did you see those?" He asked. Cael shook her head, moving away from the console. "Eddy'll probably kill me if he figures out because they're supplied to any one who wants one, but they're really good on protection." Venvor brought her over to another vendor, a blonde who was decked entirely in a black one piece. But it wasn't a one piece, Cael thought, after closer examination of the product on the screen. There were three separate pieces that blended so completely when worn, it was nearly impossible to tell that it was anything but a one piece suit.

"Hey, Holosuit Hannah."

"Hey, Son. Not interested in getting a Holosuit yet, are you?" she asked casually, like they'd been through this many times.

"Nope. But my friend here is," He gestured to Cael, who was standing behind the younger boy like a little sister.

"Oh, Hello!" The blonde waved enthusiastically. "First time Holosuit purchase, huh? Well, we'll get everything worked out, don't worry! Oh, yeah - I'm Hannah. The Holosuits are really great, just tell me your size, and I'll get you a set." Venvor started to walk back towards the two girls, having just finished a trade with a short, blue haired kid who was heading the opposite direction.

"Uhm…" Cael didn't know what a Holosuit was, much less the sizing method used by them. However, Venvor answered for her. "Ten twenty-four by seven eighty-six." He said, pocketing the newly acquired Taros. The girl turned to face him. "Is that a joke?"

"Nawh, that's the best." He pointed out. When he saw that Cael's unamused expression remained, he continued. "Holosuits are one size fits all by gender. What I'm referring to is the resolution."

"It's just easier to refer to it as size," Hannah shrugged.

"So, ten twenty-four by seven eighty six."

Cael stood in the powder room of one of the houses inside the perimeter of the Cardboard Castle, holding the Holosuit at arm's length. Venvor had said that these things were one size fits all… but it looked more like a parachute to her. Perhaps it was adjustable? Either way, she shed her tattered jeans and tee and replaced them with the Holosuit top and pants. Nearly seamless were the pieces, minus the fact that they were about eight sizes too big for her.

She sat on the toilet, put the black boots on, and stood. All at once, there was a hissing noise, and the every component of the suit shrunk until it fit her form perfectly.

Huh. One size does fit all.

Venvor was waiting for her in the kitchen. "How's it?" he asked, fishing a glass bottle out of the refrigerator.

"It's nice. Feels kind of like a swimsuit."

"When the war started, Dexter actually made the first Holosuit OUT of a swimsuit. Back then the few that existed were all Handmade. They'd take swimsuit material, enforce it with silicon-laced steel spray, and sew in the holographic projectors. Now they're mass produced." The boy took a swig out of the bottle before setting it on the counter, and beginning to dig through his pack. Eventually, he pulled out the little metal box Cael had seen at the market. "Here, He said, clipping it on her belt next to the NanoCom.

"What is it?"

Venvor pushed the small blue button on the top of the contraption and the entire front flipped down, revealing several compartments which held small colorful packets, what Cael could only associate with Jet Dry Electrosol packets. "I'm guessing those aren't for a dishwasher…"

"You put one of those in your dishwasher, you're not gonna have a house anymore. Those are power boosts. The red ones are for the nanos, green for ability boosts, and yellow for weapon boosts." He said, pointing to the corresponding packets.


	6. Chapter 6

"Okay… how do you use them?"

"Just crush em."

"Oh, okay." She said, closing the small container.

"And," Venvor said, digging around in his pack, "I feel you could put this to good use." He drew out of the pack a weapon, larger than the one she'd previously had. "It's a Surge Cannon. KND designed, Dexlab modified. It uses internal electric charge instead of ammo, so you shouldn't have any problems with that again. Also, you can't crush it by falling on it." He said, with a hint of sarcasm.

Cael smiled despite herself. "Thanks, Son." With her free hand, she unclipped the taros calculator from her belt. "How much do I owe you?" she asked.

Venvor laughed lightly. "Consider it a welcome gift to the inexperienced newbie."

"Har, har, very funny." Cael said, re-clipping the calculator. "Though I will admit, I'm not exactly up to skill here."

"It's weird, Dexter and Number two kept telling us how they just absolutely knew that this Cael Claw person was gonna show up outta nowhere and help us win the war against Fuse." He paused. "Definitely not what most of us were expecting."

Cael smiled wryly. "No kidding."

"Ah, man, that's not what I meant –"

"I know. But I also know I can't fight for my life. I don't have a fraction of the skill or knowledge that any other given soldier has, I've been stumbling around since I got here. But if I can help –" She stopped as her NanoCom started beeping frantically. She took it off her belt and played with it for a moment, trying to find the button to accept the transmission, before doing so, accidentally opening her map.

"Who is it?" Venvor asked casually, helping her with the buttons.

The screen flicked on, and Dexter came into view. "Cael? What happened, where are you?" His voice sounded on edge.

Cael smiled at the boy's image. "I ran into a spawn pack, was out of ammo, so another soldier I met took me to Peach Creek Commons to gear up."

"Alright. I want you to head to Genius Grove. Once you get there, Mandark will tell you what to do."

"This the same kid you were telling me about before?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But if we want to get you back to the past, we're going to need his help."

Venvor looked at the girl for a moment before snatching her NanoCom. "You said that she was here to help us win the war!" he said, harshly. "You're going to send her back?!"

"I know it seems odd, but it has to be done."

"Fuse is going to destroy us, and you're sending our 'hero' back?"

"She is of no use to us here; most of the world is already absorbed by planet Fusion. We can send her back to the past, however, and there will be a greater chance of us being able to save our world. Try to understand, soldier."

Venvor glared unforgivingly into the screen for a moment before shoving the NanoCom back into Cael's hands. "If it were anyone else, Dexter, I'd forget trying to understand." He said, taking up his weapon and the glass bottle and heading out.

"Mandark will be expecting you in Genius Grove, Cael. I suggest you head out." The NanoCom went blank. The girl sighed, taking up her things and turning the weapon on. She could understand where Son was coming from, and frankly, she wasn't too keen on the idea of more time travel herself, but Dexter was right: What had to be done would be done, regardless of how either of them felt about sending her back to the past.

And with that, she headed outside of the Cardboard Castle.

Twenty-five minutes, eight bad burrows and two trips to the Resurrect Em later, Cael arrived at the bridge for Genius Grove. Two S.A.C.T agents were guarding the decaying bridge on either side.

Genius grove wasn't as populated as the other towns, not to say that it was deserted. No, kids still swarmed the neighborhood, but it was no where near as crowded as the other places. She went further into the development and was fairly shocked.

Towering above the houses was a red and black superstructure, with a giant "M" hanging over the front doors of the building.

She walked up to the perimeter of the infected zone that contained the magnificent building, her neck craned as she looked up. "Mandark Industries… I suppose I'm in the right place…" she said, quietly, reading the lettering underneath the "M".

"I do believe you're here for a reason, miss?" she heard, turning around; behind her stood a boy in a long high-collared black and red cape.

"Oh, hello! I'm Cael Claw," she said, kindly, holding out her hand.

After a moment's hesitation, he returned the gesture. "Mandark Astronomonov. I'm sure Dexter has mentioned me."

"Oh! You're Mandark?"

"Of course. What would make you think otherwise?"

"If memory serves, your first name is Susan, correct?"

"And what of it?" he asked, his frown deepening. "Your first name is Cael. And 'if memory serves', that's a form of the name Caleb."

She laughed lightly. "Touché."

"Names notwithstanding, though I prefer you call me Mandark from now on, I have a few jobs for you to perform."

"So I've heard."

"Obviously, you have noticed my laboratory. Unfortunately, Dexter has deemed it an Infected Zone. He also requests that I help get you back to the past, so that you can further assist us in the war against fuse. But you're going to need to do as I order."

Cael smiled hugely. "Lay it on me!"

* * *

A/N : Please accept my applolgies on the matter of this chapter's shortness. I'm currently having a bad spell of writer's block, not to mention realizing that I completely missed a few very improtant things in FuFa. Expect a few out of order Nano missions in the later chapters.

~TD


	7. Chapter 7

"If you want to get back to the past, you're going to need my genius. There happen to be several wormholes that have opened up due to your being here."

Cael beamed," That's great! I can go home!"

"Hardly," Mandark said flatly. "The wormholes are good for transporting objects across space, but any organic material introduced probably wouldn't make it."

"Oh,"

The boy handed her a bundle of three or four cylindrical containers. "Take these to the wormholes," he said, "They're messages to a few specific people in the past. Once you get back, they might be able to help you."

She shifted her weight uneasily. Sending messages into the past to influence someone's actions? Not exactly her idea of how to help things.

She took the containers tentatively, Mandark looking more impatient than before. "Where are the wormholes?"

"Keep your NanoCom on, and I'll give you directions through your mini-map.

Cael turned around and headed away from Genius Grove, still feeling uneasy.

The first wormhole Mandark found for her was in the cul-de-sac. She hesitated before tossing the small container into the green swirling mass. The wormhole spared a bright yellow and when the light died down, the container was no where to be seen.

She swallowed hard as her NanoCom beeped again, with the next location.

The feeling in her gut had left by the time she got back to Genius Grove. Mandark was standing over a Red and black robot, programming it. She waited patiently for him to finish. "What do you want?"

"Messages have been sent." She said, quietly. "What're you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm programming the Mandroid to take care of all business in the Genius Grove area. Thos Dexbots certainly aren't going to do it, and I'm needed in Peach Creek Commons."

"Oh, alright. Well, while you're here, anything else?" she asked.

"Yes, one more thing: Since you seem to take orders well, see if you can retrieve one of my robots. It went missing in battle a few weeks ago, and it's crucial to obtain if you want to get back to your time. Larry 3000. Last anyone saw him, he was in Goat's Junkyard."

She nodded, turning, but stopped when he called her back. "One last thing," he said. Her taros counter clicked as the count rose. "Once in Goat's Junkyard, you might want to talk to Samurai Jack. He's experienced Time Travel before. He might have a few things that need to be taken care of before you go. To prep the time field." The boy shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. I'd check just to be sure."

She nodded again, her stomach churning on all the talk of time travel. You'd think that she'd be alright with it, or at least better, seeing as how she was three years into the future at the moment, she thought as she ran across the town.

She felt like a traitor. She knew nothing good could come out of what she was doing. She was sure they'd all have a better fighting chance if she just stayed where she was. Going back and changing things that happened could ruin them all.

But that wasn't entirely correct. She was just going home. There was no harm in going back to her time, right?

No. Because in the three years she'd been gone, things HAD happened, and by going back, she would be changing that.

Cael frowned and focused on her direction, putting those thoughts from her mind for the moment. No use worrying herself on something that couldn't be helped.

The world was in a horrible situation. As far as she knew, the few places she'd been already were the only ones left. All the rest of the world had been taken over by seas of green fusion matter. Everyone's homes, and undoubtedly, other people. What had happened to them?

She was suddenly mad. All of this was her fault, she realized. If she hadn't agreed to that stupid time travel project, they wouldn't be in this situation! Her pace sped up and she took off running. She was part of this war, whether she liked it or not, and it was her responsibility to help win it.

Goat's junkyard was massive.

By the time she had reached it, her anger spike had disappeared as she saw the dump. A man in a white robe was standing near the entrance portal. The place was an infected zone… She walked up to him, and he bowed deeply. "Miss Claw, I presume?"

"Yes… Samurai Jack, correct?" she said, bowing back, feeling a bit silly.

"Yes. I heard that you are the one who is going to defeat Fuse."

She laughed. "That's funny. I've been hearing the same thing since I got here."

"Time Travel, yes?"

She frowned slightly, turning to enter the junkyard. "Unfortunately." She jumped onto the entrance portal and felt herself being dematerialized.

Cael Stumbled over remnants of cars and tow trucks – vehicles that were in fact very different from the style of cars she'd seen on the street while here.

Fusion spawn were all over the junkyard, some of them were wearing what looked like gasmasks, although she couldn't imagine why they'd need –

Beep beep! Beep beep! Her NanoCom went off, signaling that someone was trying to connect with her. Cael unhooked the device and settled herself against one of the cars, out of sight of the fusions before receiving the transmission.

"Cael, I've managed to lock on Larry 3000's energy signature. Apparently, his circuitry is intact enough for the homing signal to still be effective. I'm sending the relative pinpoint to you NanoCom now."

"Alright," Cael smiled into the screen. "Thanks, Mandark!" she managed to say before the screen went black again, the transmission having been cut.

She peeked out from behind the car door she was using as a temporary hiding spot. Fusions swarmed the place, but it was just enough for her to slip by… she hoped.

The girl darted out into the open, making her way to a ramp-like structure in the middle of the yard. The fusions didn't see her immediately, but she knew that if one turned around and saw her running, it would attack her, thus attracting every other fusion in the vicinity.

Her holo-boots made a loud clunking sound as she ran up the ramp – if the fusions hadn't noticed her before, they certainly did now. But, it didn't matter, she was up on the platform. The fusions wouldn't try to follow her up the ramp – they didn't like being too high off the ground, afraid they might fall and splatter.

Cael looked toward the horizon. A giant robot was standing in the distance, fusion goo climbing up it like an invasive weed. If that thing was Larry 3000, there was no way she was getting back to Mandark. She might have been there to 'save the planet', but she was certainly no superhero.

She checked her NanoCom to make sure that the giant monstrosity really was Larry 3000, and to her great relief, it wasn't. Larry's energy signature was coming from some where northeast from her. She looked, but couldn't see any-

From below, there was a strange gurgling noise, which seemed to multiply into a chorus of growls. Cael frowned before being knocked off her feet by a blast of green fusion energy. The force sent her sliding off the edge of the structure, into the muddy goo below. The pack of spawn surrounded her, beginning to nip at her suit and hair. The girl brandished her weapon and fired a few poorly-aimed shots into the midst of the spawn as she ran from them.

The field she was in was a barren expanse of absolutely nothing save for a small pile of rubble here and there, hardly anything she would be able to use to her advantage.

To her left, she saw a jump pad. Cael swore in her head as she tripped over a stray carburetor before quickly picking herself up and hurrying to the jump pad. It carried her up and she thrust her body forward, sending her across the field. It felt like she was flying, just with more of a falling sensation, which ultimately kept her aware of her situation. There was another platform ahead, such a short distance but she could already feel her altitude decreasing. She stretched her arms forward as far as she could.

SMACK! Her hand hit the edge of the platform and she latched on. She was at least three stories off the ground now. If she let go or slipped, it would mean a definite trip to the Resurrect 'Em. Or, if she were especially unlucky, a broken leg, upon which she would be torn apart by the fusion spawn waiting patiently at the bottom.

Uhm, no. she decided, and with great effort hauled herself up onto the platform, to the great dismay of the spawn below. Now, to find the head of Larry 3000…

Dexter looked tiredly down at the production line. Dexbot after Dexbot was being made, but it still wasn't enough. Number Five had told him that the bots were being destroyed as fast as they were being put out there. He'd need to make some adjustments, to make the bots more sustainable. They were not suited to be out on the frontline like this. He'd created the Dexbots to help him around the laboratory.

Dexter removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It was now a year since his first human test subject, Miss Cael Claw, had gone missing. The accident in his laboratory had forced him to reveal it to his parents, in hopes of repairing the time machine quicker, but it had in fact delayed his work. Yes, his mother and father had been enthralled with his intellect, but they decided to help him start an industry with what was left of his inventions. And thus, Dexlabs was founded. But it had taken too long for the facility to be built. The invasion had begun, and there was simply no way he'd be able to repair the time machine for Claw to come back.

It was either late at night or early in the morning, he wasn't entirely sure. His watch was broken during the first week of the invasion and he simply hadn't had time to fix it. He disregarded it as a servicebot wheeled in. "Sir," it droned in an electronic voice, "An unfamiliar package had been found inside of the premise. Do you wish for it to be disposed of?"

"No," the boy replied, a tad off his better judgment, "bring it here."

Momentarily, the Dexbot disappeared, later retuning with a green cylindrical container, which he handed off toe the boy genius. Dexter looked at the container for a moment before twisting off the cap, nearly dropping it as the pressurized air hissed as it was released. The body of the device started humming, and he shouted for a securitybot, anticipating the device to explode or some other function of destruction. When a holographic projector shone out of the container, flickering to life, he stopped, his nerves calmed, if not a little confused. The message played.

"Dexter, it is I, Mandark!" The boy genius frowned. Why was Mandark contacting him? Furthermore, why did he look older? "It seems that the result of your failed experiments has crash landed in our time. A certain Cael Claw is working on the time machine you could never finish. With my genius, she will arrive in your time, bringing news of the war between Earth and planet Fusion!"

"Cael – she's there? She's alive?" he asked. However, the holographic Mandark didn't seem to hear him, and continued.

"I have sent messages containing this information to three other people besides you. You and the three others – 'Double D', MojoJoJo, and Benjamin Tennyson – will meet her in Sector Five at approximately 0700 hours. Try not to miss her arrival."

The image died.

Dexter frowned, recapping the device. "Computress!" he shouted.

"Yes, Dexter?" the robotic personification of his supercomputer strode up next to him, from her post on the other side of the overlook.

"Computress, what time is it?" he asked, frowning.

"Time is 6:45 AM, Dexter. Is that all?"

"Computress, I'm putting you in control of all activities here. I'm going out!" He called over the din as he ran from the overlook.


	8. Chapter 8

Cael lugged the head of the robot back through the junkyard – while fending off the spawn, mind you! – and back to Peach Creek Commons to Mandark.

"Excellent work, Cael!" he said, happily. Or, at least, that's what she figured he was expressing…

"Thanks," she said, putting her ponytail up again. "Alright, I'm off." She smiled at the boy who was now using a wrench to secure a panel on a NanoStation.

"Claw – Number Two wants you at the KND treehouse. Now."

"Okay, thanks!" she called, changing her direction.

Number Two stood outside the massive treehouse. "Finally! We've been waiting for you! What took you so long?" he joked, knowing she'd just come from Peach Creek Commons, and that Mandark hadn't told her about the quick transport units scattered all through the towns. The KND operative stepped onto a warp pad and she followed; it brought them into the topmost part of the treehouse.

Light beamed through the loose boards of the roof. But it was not the soft yellow glow that reflected most off of the people and objects in the room. It was the harsh blue light emitted from the time portal. Cael swallowed hard.

"Well, it was nice knowin' ya, kid!" Number Five said, enthusiastically, patting Cael on the back. "Good luck in your own time!"

Cael went up to the top step of the stairs that were positioned in front of the portal, looking back at the group of people. Mandark, Numbers Two and Five, Buttercup, Samurai Jack, Eddy and a strange purple bull-like creature. She noticed Venvor standing in the back of the room with Computress. He nodded slightly to acknowledge this. Cael took a deep breath and turned back to face the portal, her knees shaking. "_I can do this. I've done it before…_" she thought, tightening her fists at her side.

From behind her, she could hear footfalls on the wooden floor, but simply couldn't look away from the menacing blue void in front of her. "Cael?" Venvor said, leaning over her shoulder. She tried to answer, finding that her voice wouldn't work. She was terrified. She couldn't do this. Going into the future was one thing, she'd managed to convince herself, but going to the past and tampering with events was completely different. When he realized that she wasn't going to answer, he put his hands on her back. "Good luck back there." And he pushed her.

Cael gasped as she felt herself enveloped by the time vortex. Whatever was happening, it burned her skin, felt like she was being stung by a thousand hornets. The pain brought her to her hands and knees, though on what she was kneeling, she wasn't sure, but it didn't matter. The pain was coursing its way into her body. Every bit of her felt like it was vibrating. Time traveling while conscious, she learned, was very painful.

Dexter ran through the streets, ignoring the curious stares of passer bys and soldiers who were scattered here and there. Many people were confused or alarmed; Dexter hadn't come out of the massive complex of his labs for quite some time, now. For nearly eight months, he'd been labeled as more of a recluse than anything. And, now, for these people to see him out in the open, it was a shock. Most feared that something horrible had happened regarding the invasion that had forced him out of his labs. But it was quite the contrary, Dexter thought. Today, or rather, in three minutes, Cael Claw was going to return to her time. Given, of course, that everything went well in the future. But he hoped more than trusted that this would be so.

At 7:09, Dexter arrived, out of breath, in Hero's Square. Ben Tennyson, Double D, and MojoJoJo were there, as Mandark had said, but there was something out of place, something missing: Cael. She was nowhere to be seen.

"You got one too?" Ben asked, casually.

"Where is she?" he panted, holding his hands behind his head to catch his breath.

"Cael?" Ben asked, receiving nothing more than a nod from the boy genius. "Not here." He replied. There was a sort of implosion in the air a few feet ahead, and they all gasped.

The pain simply grew as she felt a heavy gust of wind, and then the pain was gone. Now she could feel the grainy dirt underneath her hands and the sun on her back. Her eyes had been squeezed shut with pain, but when she looked up, she felt better than ever.

The group of boys stood behind her, watching as the girl stood and dusted herself off. "Found her." Ben said, recovering from the slight shock of seeing her appear so suddenly.

Cael turned to face her guides, slightly confused. Time travel was disorienting…

"Dexter!" she exclaimed, rushing for the boy. Because of the thirteen-year-old's smaller frame, she nearly knocked him over as she stooped slightly down to hug him. Finally, she was back in her own time!

He didn't entirely understand. You'd think that after being god-knows-where in the time stream for more than a year because of him, she'd be a little less…happy to see him.

When she stepped back, he cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses, looking her over. What on earth was she wearing? It looked like a wet suit. He didn't get the chance to voice this curiosity because of MojoJoJo. "We should leave, before spawn attack us because we are still here."

Cael's insides dropped into oblivion and her smile vanished. "Spawn?"

"Fusion Spawn. Come back to Dexlabs with us and I'll tell you what the Fusions are."

"I know what spawn are, you already explained it," at this Dexter was momentarily confused. "But there shouldn't be any spawn here. I left a month before the invasion!" she wrung her hand together, immediately upset again.

"Come on, kid. Let's get back to the Labs and then you can get a better understanding of what's going on here." Ben guided her away from The Sector Five area, the others following.

"Dexter explained most of our situation to me when I was in the future. And what he didn't, Computress did."

"So you're the time traveler Dexter was telling us about," Double D ran out in front of her and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you!"

Cael smiled wryly and took his hand.

Dexlabs, a place she'd never actually been before, was more magnificent than she'd have ever been able to imagine. The place was forty-seven stories tall, half of which were underground laboratories. The small group she now found herself in, however, stationed themselves on the fifteenth floor, which was a small underground infirmary. They sat in a wide semicircle around Cael, which made her feel strangely alienated.

"Mandark's message told us that you'd have important information about the war." Ben said, leaning forward.

Cael shifted uneasily in her seat. "There's not much to know, boys. Three years from now, there's not much left." She listed off the towns that were going to be left three years into the future, while all four sat in a rather stunned silence.

"Everything's gone…" Ben added, quietly.

"Even Dexlabs is nonfunctional…" The boy genius played with the wrist strap on his oversized purple safety gloves.

She finished her story, and Dexter found an opportunity to ask her something he'd been wondering about since she'd gotten there.

"What are you wearing?"

At first, the question took her off guard, producing a "Pardon?" When he motioned to her Holosuit, her cheeks flushed pink. "Oh," she said quietly. "It's a Holosuit. Your invention, actually."

"I do not recall creating anything of the sort."

Cael smiled. "That's because you haven't. Not yet." The room became eerily quiet at this. Cael felt a tad bad for causing the silence.

"Well, I daresay we're overdue for a sector report." Edd broke the silence, his eyes shifting around the room rather nervously.

"Agreed," MojoJoJo grunted. "As for my report, that is much overdue, Buttercup is still missing."

"The Cul-de-sac is well, as are the soldiers." Double D said, "The spawn have not yet been able to infiltrate the Cardboard Castle!"

"Well, let's see how long it's able to hold up," Ben said, unimpressed.

Cael looked between them, hesitating. Eventually, she spoke up, "The Cardboard Castle is the safest place in the future." she said, her voice small. Never has she been one to interject in an argument that she wasn't involved in, but it was the truth.

"Oh, thank goodness! Where else would the soldiers go if the Cul-de-sac was Terrafused?"

"Ben, what about the Offworld Plaza?" Dexter sat up in his chair, hands folded in his lap very formally.

Cael looked at the boy. He's thirteen, she thought, and burdened with such responsibility. When she was thirteen, she was playing softball six days a week, not heading up an interplanetary war. Of course, from the moment she met Dexter, it was evident that he was never really a normal child, but still. She wasn't truly listening to Ben at the moment. Her heart skipped a beat when Dexter looked briefly at her. She particularly didn't like being caught staring at people. But it was fleeting. He looked back at Ben and the others after a mere second.

He didn't notice, she told herself. She was looking at the others now, listening.

"…can't take the guards out of the KND jungle post. That place is bombarded enough as it is." Double D said.

"But Endsville and Townsville don't have any guard." Ben argued.

"That's because there's nothing there. There's a whole KND operation in the jungle."

Dexter spoke again. "He's right." All conversation stopped. "There are soldiers living at the KND jungle post. We can't afford to move any guard from the base." He said. No one argued with him.

Sooner than Cael had really wanted, Dexter, MojoJoJo, Double D and Tennyson left Dexlabs. Cael wandered aimlessly around the small infirmary, until she found herself sitting on one of the cot-like beds when the thirteen year old boy genius came back, shutting the door with a soft, inevitable click.

She looked up at him. "I'm not supposed to be here." She said, playing with the scrunchie that she'd pulled out of her hair. Dexter paused momentarily.

"What do you mean?"

"When I was in the future, you told me that Planet Fusion arrived in the sky a month after the accident. I'm supposed to be back in MY TIME. How long has it been since the accident?"

"In the lab? A little over a year." Cael heaved a sigh. "But don't worry about it," the boy said. "You're needed here."

"But what if something goes wrong because of my being here? Earth was in no position for mistakes when I left."

Dexter frowned. "Science is all about taking chances," he said, sternly. "When you agreed to help me with my time travel experiment, you agreed to become a woman of science. You cannot be scared by such trivial things like 'if something goes wrong', especially now." The boy paced back and forth in front of Cael. "So: Are you going to be a cowardly little girl or are you going to help us win this fight?"

Cael bowed her head. He was right, she knew, but she just didn't want to admit it to herself, much less to the boy in front of her.

"Well?"

"Well? Well, I know I didn't step into a time portal and endure conscious deatomization through the fabric of the time space continuum just to sit here while you scold me." She stood, and to her amazement, Dexter smiled.

"There you go." He said; Cael frowned deeply. "Now, we need to get moving,"

Cael's frown disappeared and she sighed. Dexter…was right. Defeated, she followed the boy out of the infirmary, back up the strange energy lift (Cael couldn't help herself from swaying as the pair shot up some twenty stories in four seconds.) and down endless corridors until they came to another room, this one no bigger than the infirmary, perhaps smaller. "Go on, sit. I've got some work to do."

Cael watched silently as the boy genius worked on a warp pad, the solitary machine in the room at the moment.

"When this is done," he said, sliding out from underneath the pad, "We'll be able to storm planet Fusion" Dexter smiled from underneath the oil stains on his face and wiped his glasses clean before going back to work.

_Chrizz Chrizz Chrizz_.

"Dexter." Cael stood. "Did you hear that?"


	9. Chapter 9

"Dexter." Cael stood. "Did you hear that?"

The boy merely shook his head as he tightened numerous bolts, filling the room with the sharp _Chrizz_ of the wrench.

Cael pressed her ear up against the crack of the door. She could've sworn she'd heard some sort of –

_Bong, Bong._

There! Cael threw the door open.

Not there.

The room had gone silent now, and the absence of the _Chrizz_ or the wrench seemed unsettling.

"What was that?" Dexter whispered, harshly. So he had heard it too!

Cael closed the door, confused. They certainly weren't _both_ imagining it.

"Dunno." She said, calmly. "Probly just the air ducts." Cael sat back down and watched him work, in a rather uneasy silence.

The room was filled with the steady rhythm of Dexter's handiwork. "As I was saying," he said, breaking the silence, "when this is done, we'll send a probe to planet Fusion's surface. This warp pad will interact with the probe, which will be able to beam anyone, or any_thing_ to any accessible coordinate on the planet."

Cael wasn't truly listening. That noise – they'd both heard it. Unlike Dexter, she couldn't just dismiss it, even though she knew that the security bots would have taken care of any problems.

Like she said, it was probably just air in the vents…

In the vents?

Cael looked up at the tiled ceiling of the room.

Dexter was standing right under the air vent.

"If possible, we would even be able to transport right to Fuse's front door!" he exclaimed, wiping his sleeve across his forehead.

Cael responded faster than she thought she could. She practically tackled Dexter, sending both of them flying nearly to the other side of the room

The moment the pair hit the ground, a Terrefuser smashed its way through the vent, taking a large section of the ceiling with it.

Cael and Dexter sat on the floor, stunned for a moment as they watched the unearthly monster reduce the warp pad to a heap of scrap metal and a tangle of shredded wires and circuitry.

The boy genius was the first to pick himself up, pulling Cael with him as they ran from the room.

"How on Earth did _that_ get past security?" she panted as they ran.

As a response, Dexter raised his arm and pressed a button on his watch. "Access main security bot communication, control command 157b."

There was a hissing white noise through communications. He frowned, and repeated his command. Again, no response. "Computer?"

"Yes, Dexter?"

"Access route…" He looked around at his surroundings. "3-E5."

There was another hiss as a concealed door opened to their right. The pair turned into the compartments sharply, Cael's feet nearly flying out from under her.

They could hear the Terrefuser making its way in their direction as the door slid shut.

Both kids held their breath as the fusion paced outside. In the dim light of the passageway, Dexter decided that they couldn't stay there forever, shaking himself of the shock and motioning for Cael to follow him. The pair took off down the narrow passageway, often having to move parallel to the walls to be able to get through.

"Dexter?" He stopped walking, causing Cael to walk into him for lack of visibility. Her voice sounded strained, probably because of the encounter.

With some effort, the boy turned around in the tunnel and groped in the dark for a moment before he found her arm. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine." She whispered. "What about you?"

Dexter nodded at this, before realizing that it wasn't very effective in the pitch blackness. "Quite," he said.

"Sorry I tackled you, before." She said, before pausing. "Uhm… where does this go?"

Dexter hesitated for a moment. He coughed into his glove and fixed the collar of his lab coat. "I'm not entirely sure." The shuffling of feet stopped behind him.

"You don't know where we're going?" Cael asked, flatly

"Not exactly… But come on. When I put the plans for Dexlabs into action, I told the Dexbots to put in a few emergency escape routes; then the Dexbots were recycled to ensure no one knew where the passages lead, thus eliminating the possibility of an ambush after and escape, such as this." He explained, formally.

"Of course," he heard Cael's voice come from behind him. "At least tell me you gave the Dexbots parameters. Or are we going to be walking for the next four hours?" she asked, her voice laced with bitterness.

"Easy, easy. I set the Dexbots to construct the escape routes no further than 6oo feet from the main Dexlabs building. We should almost be there…" Chink! "Here. It's a metal escape hatch." Dexter unlatched the cap and pushed the trapdoor open, hauling himself out before reaching back for Cael.

"Where are we?" She asked, looking around at the unfamiliar territory.

"Looks like Endsville." He said, getting up off the floor.

He'd mentioned Endsville once before, back at Dexlabs. And she had obviously been expecting for it to seem battle-weathered, but this place… as melodramatic as it seemed, Endsville seemed to suck every ounce of happiness and hope out of her.

"I don't like this place," she said, breathily.

"You'll be fine. Just watch out for the fusion monsters around here. They're a little more demented than back in the city. Fuse's sick idea of putting a twist on who takes residence in Endsville, which probably explains your feelings of dread. He should be around here, somewhere…" Dexter trailed off, peeking abound the corner of a building. "The house is right there, but there are quite a few Jack-O-Lanterns in the ally way."

"Jack-O-Lanterns? Is that all?" Cael asked, taking a peek herself. She gasped at the sight of the sickly green glowing scarecrows with pumpkin heads, their eyes hallowed out and glowing red, twisted smiles forever carved onto their faces. "Sure scarier than any Halloween pumpkin _I_ carved as a kid." She whispered.

"What Fuse found funny was that one of Grim's greatest enemies was Jack. A near spitting image of these monsters. And now, Grim is rather confined to Endsville, along with Billy. And on that note, I have much sympathy for him. Anyway, we need to get to the other side of the ally, over to those homes. That's where he's staying, as of the moment. Come on," Dexter darted across the gap between buildings before the Jacks could see him, and Cael followed his example, joining him behind the next building.\

The next allyway had no fusions monsters, and they were able to walk down between the two buildings without having to so much as raise their weapon. However, once they cleared the two buildings, they had to dash across the street to Billy's house for fear of being seen and attacked.

Dexter knocked on the door, almost frantically, though it opened almost immediately. A boy with a red baseball cap stood there. "What's the password?" He blared.

"We don't have time for that, Billy." Dexter said, pushing him aside, into the house with Cael in tow. The house was typical suburbian, but what caught her by surprise was the figure sitting in the living room. "Who is it, Billy?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Who is it, Billy?" She heard, though she couldn't see the man's face past the heavy black hooded robe. Eerie, she thought.

"It's Dexter, Grim! And his _girlfriend_!" he said, snickering at the thought. Though Billy was almost as old as Dexter, he still retained a childish demeanor.

The man, Grim, got up and walked into the hallway to meet Dexter and Cael.

The latter gasped and shot back, fumbling for the doorknob on the only accessible exit.

Grim rolled his eyes as Dexter went to calm his friend down. "Cael, it's alright. He's on our side!" He pulled her away from the door.

"Yeah. He's just the grim reaper, after all." She said, in a high pitched voice.

"Just da Grim Reaper, eh, girl?" he said, impatiently. "I'm da one who's been revivin' yer sorry kiester every time you get blasted halfway to oblivion!" he held up his scythe for emphasis. "One hundred and forty-two times, now. _I_ been keepin' count."

"And you'll pass her through the Resurrect 'Em's a thousand times more if you need to, Grim." Dexter said, testily.

Grim stared down at Dexter for a moment before heading off, mumbling something. The boy could vaguely make out the words "taking orders," and "small fry carrot top."

When grim was back in the living room, Dexter turned back to the younger boy. "Billy, we need –"

"Dexter and his girlfriend, sitting in a sheep, k-i-s-s-i-n-"

"Billy, focus!" he shouted, silencing the immature boy in front of him. "I would like to get back to Sector V. We need ammo. Do you still have the ammunition we gave you?"

"Sure do, carrot top!" Billy ran off to another room in the house; Dexter didn't bother to follow.

"How far is Sector V from here?" Cael asked, coming up behind him.

"Some good mile."

"Now, I know we didn't walk for a mile." She said, flatly.

"It must have been another precaution of the Dexbots. I gave them all manners of material to build the escape hatches. That particular route might have used a teleporter, and we didn't even know it."

"Fabulous." Cael rubber her eyes.

Dexter noticed this and turned around. "When was the last time you slept?" he asked, skeptically. The girl shrugged.

"I don't have a clue… It seems life forever since this mess started. Can't have been more than two, three days at most." She waves her hands around in emphasis.

Dexter shook his head, telling her that he was to have her set up in a resting unit the moment they got back to Sector V, but she wasn't paying attention. She was watching this Billy kid as he came up the basement steps with a box brimming with all different sorts of weaponry. There were rifles and melee weapons and spare ammunition, everything you could think of.

Cael walked up to the box and took out a small gun, the barrel of which looked like an éclair.

"That's a Custard Buster. Despite its size, it's actually quite effective for long range targeting."

"Anything you recommend?"

"I keep my wrench with me, at all times. But as far as ballistic weaponry goes, I would recommend the High-Range Pitch Pistol."

"I don't see any," she said, sifting through the box. "I like this one," she bounced the Custard Buster in the palm of her hand, emphasizing its small, light frame.

"Not a bad choice in itself. Then again, most of the Kids Next Door two by four technology is excellent."

He watched as she holstered the weapon and stepped back from the box. He stepped forward and started sorting the guns, looking for a weapon to take with him. At length, he chose a small pistol that was easily concealed within his lab coat. As he walked off with Cael behind him, she could see Billy walk up to the box and take up a gun, staring down the barrel of it.

Dexter took the NanoCom off his belt and pressed a series of buttons, and the girl watched as a holographic map of the towns was projected. Dexter pointed to a thick red line that curved off of the page. "This is a monorail system. It will take us straight though the adjacent towns back to Sector V. The only problem is that, in order to get to it, we would have to go through the Jack-O-Lantern territory. No exceptions, which is why we need the weapons. Follow me and we'll get though in no time."

Both ran out of the house, Cael unholstering her weapon as she did so.

Numbuh Five plucked her NanoCom off her belt. "Yo, Dex. Where _are _you with this girl you keep talking about?" The boy genius's face appeared on the NanoCom screen. "You told us you'd be at Dexlabs."

"Yeah, well… Change of plans. We're in Endsville."

"What the heck are you doin' all the way up there?" she asked, throwing her free hand into the air.

"Dexlabs has been compromised. We took an escape rout and are on the monorail back to Sector V. Is everything ready?"

"We got everything except for two things." Numbuh Five said, coolly. She could see a look of panic cross Dexter's face.

"What? What're we missing?" he stuttered.

"You and the girl, genius!" she roared. "Now hurry up and get over here." At this her tone softened. "These people are getting restless!"

On the other end, Dexter nodded and ended the transmission. She couldn't blame him for being a little unorthodox, especially now, but it was so unlike him. It was kind of weird, seeing him so frazzled. The girl re-clipped the NanoCom to her belt and stepped up to the microphone. "Will you all calm down?" she asked, impatiently. "They're comin'!" The roar of the audience diminished only by a few decibels, but it was enough to keep Numbuh Five's oncoming headache at bay.

Why had Dexter wanted to do this again?

Dexter stood on the platform as they sped over the towns. The monorail wasn't the fastest way to get from one place to the next, but for their purposes, and in interest of time, it was perfect.

Cael sat on the metal platform next to him, playing with the settings on her NanoCom. She looked up at him. "Numbuh Five sounded pretty stressed. What's going on back there?" she asked.

"We've pulled the soldiers from battle, and rallied them all in Hero Square."

"Isn't that a little dangerous?" She cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "Good way to get everyone blown up at once."

Dexter, however, acted as if she hadn't even said anything. "I have a few things I would like to tell them in interest of inspiration. The soldiers have become increasingly weary due to the standstill pace of the fight." He explained.

"I don't blame them. I know I wasn't here when the fight began… I can't imagine what it must be like to have been fighting for a year, without any progress… that must rip every ounce of faith from you…"

Dexter scoffed. "You don't know the half of it."

Cael saw the boy's grip tighten on the railing of the monorail platform. "Dex?"

"What?"

Cael stood up, clipping her NanoCom back onto her belt. "When I was in the future, you told me that you felt responsible for what happened." She put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to let you know two years early: I don't blame you for the accident. If it weren't for you, I would have never made it back here. Besides, the whole point of me volunteering for the experiment was to get over my fear of time travel. For the most part, I'd say it worked!" she said, brightly.

"What was it like there, in the future?" he asked, flatly, staring down at the ground that rushed past below them.

She leaned one elbow against the railing. "I think that's the last thing you need on your mind, right now." She said.

"Tell me so I can stop wondering." He demanded.

"Well," Cael started, hesitantly. "Like I said, there's not much left… and what IS left is covered with infected Zones. Fuse's monsters are everywhere," she sensed a negative change in his demeanor. "But the soldiers… they fight harder every minute. Each and every one of them is aware of what is at stake." She said. "You've got yourself some exceptional soldiers, Dexter." She hugged him from behind, resting her chin on the top of his head, smiling as she thought of the growth spurt he was going to have. In two years, he was going to be a good head taller than her. "These next few years are going to be tough, Dex. It's important not to lose faith. I didn't. Not in myself, and not in Earth. I've seen what Fuse is going to do to this planet, and I still believe there's a chance. And as the leading force behind the human race, it's so important that you don't give up. I won't allow it."

He shrugged out from under her and planted both hands firmly on the sides of her arms. "Never again," he said, looking her in the eye.

She tousled his hair. "Little soldier."

Both sat against the railing as the platform sped towards Hero Square.

"There you two are!" Numbuh Five exclaimed, pulling both by the wrists as soon as they got out of the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.

"You two are crazy, you know that? Completely loco. Numbuh Five has been here for TWO HOURS with these rowdy soldiers, tryin' to keep em calm. It ain't workin'! Now get out there before they start a riot!"

Dexter laughed, pulling a confused Cael onto the balcony of the Hero's Square monument. Up against the rail was a petite wooden podium, topped with a microphone system. He pulled her up to the podium and stood next to her.

"Soldiers of Earth," he addressed the crowd. At the sound of his voice, almost everyone on the square went dead silent, with the exception of a few who were whispering excitedly to their neighbors. "As I'm sure you are all aware, I have been – admittedly – unusually active as of late. This is due to the arrival of a special addition to our forces. Though I know you've heard me talk of her sure arrival, I also understand why a good number of you were not ready to believe me. But, though I was beginning to believe it a lie as well, it is with great honor I introduce to you soldier and time traveler, Cael Claw."

There was a collective gasp from the crowd as Dexter stepped down from the podium. Cael stood there, for a moment, looking down onto the mass of people. What was she supposed to say?

"Well… This is unexpected." She leaned over slightly into the microphone. "I'm not entirely sure what to say. I know a lot of you have been feeling like this is a waste of time, like we're not doing anything… I guess the most I can offer is that it's not going to get better. Two years from now, there's next to nothing left. Even Dexlabs is compromised in the future." At this, she could see just what that meant to the crowd. They all seemed stunned, and another wave of whisper rippled through them. "There isn't much of a way to sugar coat it. It's not a pretty future, but it's not going to get better if we give up! I've seen what's going to happen, and I still haven't given up. We have a chance to change that, now."

There was a small roar of applause. Still, with all the people in the Square, it was enough to hurt her ears. When Numbuh two and another, armor-clad operative ran onto the balcony, shouting about something, seemingly frantic, she couldn't hear what she was saying.

The soldiers on the balcony were swarming, now. Cael stared confusedly at the scene and as the audience saw this, the applause died down. Numbuh five ran up to the podium and Cael moved out of the way for her. "Attention, KND operatives of Sector V, report to the nearest S.C.A.M.P.E.R., now." Cael ran off the balcony with Numbuh Five, trying to find Dexter, to figure out what was happening.

Eventually, she stopped one of the armored soldiers. "What's going on?" she shouted over the commotion, which now included blaring sirens.

"Dexlabs has been attacked."


	11. Chapter 11

"Dexlabs has been attacked. There were explosions."

Cael stared after him, stunned as he ran off.

_Dexter._

She searched frantically for the red-head.

She turned around, back to the podium, to speak into the microphone and ask where he was, but to her surprise, he was leaning into the microphone, addressing what was left of the crowd. "People, people. Calm down. Please remain in Hero Square until instructed otherwise." She heard, blaring from the speakers. Dexter turned around and was facing her. He looked up to meet her gaze and took a deep breath. "Come on," he said, to her. "We should go find out what happened."

The pair walked calmly to a S.C.A.M.P.E.R. as numerous Plumbers corralled the crowd.

The flight to the KND tree house was tense. In the car, she recognized two of the PowerPuff Girls, Eddy, and Computress, besides Dexter and Numbuh Five, of course.

Dexlabs had been attacked.

Dexlabs had been attacked.

Dexlabs had been attacked.

Somehow, she couldn't process this entirely. The most prominent safe haven in what was left of the world was being destroyed at that very moment. Cael rubbed her eyes, and this caught Dexter's attention, but she simply shook her head.

The S.C.A.M.P.E.R. landed and everyone rushed out. Cael looked up at the skyscraper of a building. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. There was a booming rumble and a fiery burst as something on one of the upper levels exploded, shattering the glass of the windows.

Similar explosion adjourned the rest of the fantastical building.

"How did this happen?" one of the KND operatives, who had just gotten out of another vehicle, asked, running up to the small group.

"That Fusion could have killed us if it wanted to." Dexter said, quietly.

Cael looked at him. What fusion?

_The fusion that nearly squashed the two of you like pancakes_, an annoyed voice in the back of her head reminded her.

The fusion that had infiltrated Dexlabs earlier that day?

"If he wasn't after us, then what?" she asked, pulling her hair back. She held onto the loose ponytail with one hand while searching for her hair scrunchie with the other. When she couldn't find it, she dropped her hands.

Something flew out of the window, but at the moment, it was too high up too see clearly what it was. It fell and when it connected with the ground, it sent chunks of asphalt flying, and everyone scrambling for their balance. When the ground stopped shaking and the smoke cleared, they could see a crater in the ground. Standing on the far side of it was a girl. Her skin was a toxic green, which contrasted greatly with her red Holosuit. Her black hair was pulled into a side-pony that only partially hid her bright red eyes.

The group didn't get much of a chance to marvel at this before Fusion Cael took off, jumping onto a nearby building and clawing her way across it. Before long, she was gone.

"Was that CAEL?" one of the soldiers behind her asked, stunned.

Immediately, she was seized by her upper arm, forearm, shoulder and hand by four different people and brought back to the S.C.A.M.P.E.R.

Fuse knew that she'd been facing off against his creations, but how was she to appreciate the true power of the fusions? She didn't know what the true difference was between the humans and their counterparts. And she never would, unless she was fighting against something comparable to her own strength and weakness... but of course, the Fusion Cael HAD no weaknesses, he thought as he oversaw the creation of new fusion spawn he was to send down to Earth. The hilarity of this was that he knew that no so-called 'hero' had ever tried to go up against their fusion counterpart. They've all sent the soldiers to do that for them.

The fusions are equally matched against the humans they're modeled after, so it would be an even match. If only the fusions weren't three times as durable as any human, even that Osmosian the humans call Kevin Levin.

Cael was dizzy. These people were swarming all around her, and she just sat there, completely unsure of what to do. If she'd felt like she was finally getting the hang of this, she was now realizing how in over her head she was.

The girl kept pushing the hair out of her face before giving in and asking one of the girls if she had a scrunchie.

Dexter looked at her. "Where's yours?"

Cael shrugged halfheartedly. "I have no idea. I must have dropped it when we were escaping Dexlabs."

The slight chatter in the bus went quiet.

Numbuh Five stood up. "Are you kidding me?" she roared. "You left your scrunchie with a fusion?"

Dexter stood in response. "She didn't know, Numbuh Five."

"Well, who didn't bother to tell her how fusions are made?"

For this, Dexter didn't have much of a response.

"And what were you thinking? Now we've got some crazy-assed Cael Claw running around doing God only knows what to our towns-"

"She's not going to cause too much damage," Dexter offered. "She'll start looking for a lair within two hours."

"Two hours is enough to take down nearly every safe place we have left! After seeing what that thing did to Dexlabs, you think you'd understand that," she hissed.

This struck a nerve with the boy. Cael could see his expression set, his breaths were deep.

"I'm sorry Dex, but you need to understand exactly what it is you did."

"I understand fully. I'm not saying we should let her run free until she decides she's done enough!" he shouted.

Blossom stood and moved across the cabin to the boy genius, trying to calm him. "Don't get too bent out of shape, Dexter." She addressed both, "We obviously understand that something went wrong. Any of us could have explained the Terrafusing process to Cael, Numbuh Five. It's on all of us." She said.

"In the meantime, I can put a trace on any mobile, high-concentrated Fusion matter." Computress said, analyzing the data on her clipboard.

"At least we'll be able to keep an eye on Fusion Cael," Blossom added.

"Yeah," Bubbles joined her sister. "Me and Blossom will find Cael and keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't destroy anything important."

Cael hung her head. All this trouble from one little scrunchie.

"How _are_ fusion heroes created, anyway?" she asked, looking up at Numbuh five, who was coming out of her fury.

"A Terrefuser is sent to earth to collect things. Namely, parts of the planet to produce a wider variety of spawn. But occasionally, Lord Fuse will send out a Terrefuser to collect things from people. He needs a personal item before he can create a fusion. That's most likely why the Terrefuser attacked Dexlabs. Normally, fusions won't touch that place. But Lord Fuse ordered that specifically, because you were there with Dexter. He wanted something of yours to make a Fusion. And he got it."

"I'm sorry… I didn't know that was even…"

"It's not _your _fault, Cael." She said bitterly.

"Alright," Ben said, standing at Numbuh Five's side. "Enough with the guilt trip. I think he gets it."

"But there are still ways to defeat fusions, we can just-" Cael started.

"Lord Fuse knows by now that you are here, and that you would be the ultimate downfall of him. Your fusion is probably one of the strongest, possibly as strong as Fusion Dexter. You'd have to be suicidal to take on one of them." Said one of the KND operatives.

"But WE have the Grim Reaper on our side," she said stubbornly.

There was a quiet whisper.

"Cael, you and me are going to go back to the Out World Plaza together, okay?" Ben stood. "We want to separate you and Dexter, this way you'll be less of a target."

"Absolutely not!" Dexter roared.

"Dexter," Blossom grabbed his arm. "I know things aren't going as planned, but you're not thinking straight…"

"Don't tell me that I'm not thinking straight, girl!" he snapped.

"If Fuse could get rid of you AND Cael in one attack, don't you think he would? You two need to be separated. Don't be ridiculous." Ben said.

"And what happens when you're attacked at the Off world Plaza?" he asked, skeptically.

"I'll go hero. Fuse won't send Fusion Ben; he knows that's just stupid. I'll be able to take it out, or at least hold it off until we can evacuate."

She could tell by his expression that Dexter had resigned to this. She smiled wearily and hugged the short red head. "You be careful. I'll see you later." She said, heading off with Tennyson.

"Don't forget, we can still communicate through the NanoComs! If anything happens, I want to know!" he shouted after the pair.

"Of course, Dex!" Ben said, reassuringly, getting Cael into the secondary S.C.A.M.P.E.R. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He said, waving goodbye to the crowd as he boarded the taking off vehicle himself.

(Hey guys. This will probably be the last chapter for a while. My computer's been kinda wonky lately and won't let me get on Fufa, which is how I was keeping up with the story. If there was any confusion at all, what you've been reading really WAS a pumped up dramatization of my Fufa account. So, from here on out, I'mma haffta actually put effort into this thing and come up with an ending. Since I haven't been active in this fandom for nearly a year, it may prove more difficult than it should, so I want to thank everyone who's followed Cael and her Time Traveling Adventures, I want to thank everyone who's reviewed, especially Son Venvor, who has helped me with Character development and has provided a secondary character, and I want to bid you farewell until we meet again. And I promise that, when we do, Fuse won't know what hit him. :D Hope you enjoyed!)


	12. Chapter 12

The door closed as the craft rose into the air. "So, miss Claw." He said, sitting opposite her in the cabin – they were the only two there. "Fuse really thinks you're going to be the downfall of his operation here. That's pretty impressive. What'd you do to deserve THAT honor?" he asked.

"I was part of Dexter's original time-travel experiments. The one that crashed back in two thousand nine?"

"I remember that. Half of our town lost power because of that explosion."

"That bad, huh?" she asked, absentmindedly, not really expecting much less wanting a response. "Well, I was sent to twenty twelve. End of the world thing. Ironic, no? A few of the geniuses back there helped me finish the secondary time machine that Dexter had started, and brought me back here. Fuse must have caught wind of that, or else he wouldn't care one way or the other."

"But what I don't get is why that's so important to him." Ben leaned back with his hands behind his head.

"I don't, either, but it must be pretty serious for him to actually care."

"You don't know the half of it."

"So, where is this off world plaza?" she asked.

"Not too far from here, really. Not by S.C.A.M.P.E.R. at least. You'll like it. And while we're there, you can meet my cousin Gwen." He said with a smile.

"Sounds pleasant," she said grimly, looking out the window, down at the ground they were flying over, which had been reduced to nothing short of a small sea of green matter.

"This is one of the infected zones. That's what Dex called them. Like the whole planet isn't infected."

"Not yet." Cael whispered, remembering the broken future of the planet she called home.

An uncomfortable silence trailed.

"Please tell me that there's some good news come from the future. Not to offend or anything, but all I've heard since you got here was how bad off we'll be in a few years."

"None taken," she said, lightly. "Good news? I don't really know… there wasn't much. There's not a soldier who'd give up before giving their life, I suppose that's a good thing for us. The Utonium sisters were leading a lot of the battles, except for the girl with the short black hair, Buttercup? She was manning stations in Sector V."

Ben's face lit up. "Buttercup?" he asked excitedly, "They found her?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nobody's seen her for a good three, four months. She's alright?"

"Well, she must be. She was there in the future."

"Arriving at destination," a voice came over the intercom connecting the cockpit and the cabin. "Will you be requiring further assistance at the Off World Plaza?

"No thanks, chief. I've got it covered." Ben said to the intercom as the ship bumped slightly upon landing, the cabin door opening.

He jumped out and extended a hand to Cael to help her out of the vehicle. She was so transfixed on the scene that unfolded in front of her that she was glad that Ben had offered his help, for she nearly fell out of the van. He caught her, rather surprised. Ben hadn't thought she'd actually _need_ help getting out, he was only trying to be polite.

But the Off World Plaza was one of the busiest stations Cael had seen yet. People were scurrying all over the place, welders and construction workers and scientists of all sorts. A group of children was carrying a set of heavy wiring and piping towards a warehouse to their left.

In the center of all the commotion was a water fountain, beautifully carved out of what looked like white marble with steps leading up to it. Had everyone's lives not been in danger, Cael probably would have stopped to admire it, but they hadn't the time. Set behind the gorgeous fountain was the massive structure of a Shuttle Docking Station. In retrospect, that really should have been what Cael gaped at while Ben dragged her through the small industrial town. Every so often, they would have to stop as Ben conferred with some man in a hardhat or another. He would give them a curt nod and spare a word or two, but told them it really was important they get going.

Ben led her through the crowded streets. The looming structure grew larger as they approached it. He dragged her up a number of flights of stairs, so that, at some point, she couldn't feel her legs.

"Ben. What the heck? I've counted forty eight flights already. And I wasn't counting the first ten minutes."

Ben stopped short, and Cael was afraid she'd upset him somehow. But after fishing around in his coat pocket for a moment, he pulled out a small silver key with a green tag on it.

She looked from the key to the door, relieved. "Is this it?"

"Yep." Ben said sharply, jiggling the key in the lock for a second before they were allowed in. The room was dark, and Cael's eyes had to adjust for a moment to tell her that the room was actually not the storage closet it seemed from the outside. There was a small passageway as they entered, but it extended much further than it should have, eventually opening up to a triangular room, the walls of which were completely covered in machinery; computers, monitors, speakers, modems of all sizes, and even a few things that Cael could not recognize. The entire room was bathed in a deep purple light from the glow of the screens. From the back of the room, the two could hear a small, nasal voice coming form one of the transmitters.

"Goodbye, Gwen Tennyson. Give your grandmother my regards!"

"Gwen? You in here?" Ben called around some of the machinery that was blocking their way. The two had to navigate carefully, sidestepping all sorts of equipment, and occasionally having to move flush against the wall the proceed, so cramped was the small room.

"Where are we?" Cael whispered to Ben.

"We're in one of the wings of the Shuttle. Hollowed out and attached to the building. Gwen? Hey, Gwen!"

"What is it, Ben?" came a female voice from behind more machinery. "You know you shouldn't just burst in here like that."

"Sorry, Gwen, but time's a wasting."

"You know the Martians don't like contact with just _anyone_. Even the great Ben Ten."

"Who was that?" the boy asked, leaning over his cousin's shoulder as the finally reached her.

"A friend, Marvin. He's been keeping tabs on all interplanetary communications for me since the war began; he patched me through to an old friend of yours, Ben: Vilgax."

"Good to know ole' octopus face is getting pulled into the fray." The boy said with a satisfied air about him.

"Yeah, but he's been more of a help than you might think. He recently told me that there was some sort of energy disturbance just before Planet Fusion arrived. It threw off his whole ship; he thinks it might have been a worm hole, like the ones Dexlabs made in the suburban areas on Earth. Only the energy field on this one was massive. I think that's how Planet Fusion got into our solar system."

"Yeah, okay. But I have Cael Claw with me." As if to one up his cousin, he gestured grandly to the girl behind him, who had taken in Gwen's report with a grim countenance.

"How long," Cael coughed, "Before Planet Fusion arrived?"

Gwen, who was neither phased nor impressed by her cousin's surprise, shuffled through some data. "Uhm… They said it seemed to have been there for around a month before there was any activity going through it. The only thing is, no one can figure out what caused it to open. Dexter and Mandark opened the wormholes on Earth, but I don't think it'd be possible for them to open one _that_ big." Gwen said. "Oh! Ben, before I forget. Providence wants you. They said they had more information about anomaly number 622. Sounds urgent."

"Yeah, not as urgent as you think. They can gather all the information they want, none of it's useful."

"You should check it out anyway. Besides, you can introduce them to Cael. Maybe they'll be more impressed than I was."

"I wasn't trying to _impress_ you." Ben protested. Gwen stopped her typing for a moment to look back at her cousin. "Okay, so, maybe a little…"

"You can take the car." Gwen offered, tossing the keys over her shoulder. "I think I'll be here for a while. At this rate, I should have all of the information decrypted in about thirty eight hours."

"Thirty eight hours. Gotcha. Come on, Claw. Guess we're going to Providence." He muttered as he ushered Cael back out of the narrow room.

"You know," she said, as they neared completion of the descent of the impossible staircase. "I've noticed that my 'saving the world' is just a lot of running around."

Ben laughed as they trudged down the staircase. "That's all any of us have been doing for the last year." He said. "Defense is our main goal, at the moment. Until Dexlabs can develop the gear we need to actually put a dent in Fuse's forces, it's really all we can do.

From somewhere outside of the stairwell, there was a dangerous _bang!_ and distant screams.

Cael grabbed hold of the railing for support as the whole structure shook. Ben had transformed into Jetray and swooped over her head and down the last two and a half flights of steps. She leaned over the railing and looked at the distance to the ground floor. Ben was already out the door, which was now lying on the ground. Cael took a deep breath and jumped the railing, landing moderately gracefully on the concrete underneath her, tumbling to a stop. At least she didn't break any bones. Collecting herself quickly, she darted out the exit in pursuit of Ben. When she broke out into the streets, she realized how hopeless her cause was – people were scrambled on the plaza, all running in a million different directions trying to sort out the problem. But what WAS the problem? There was another rumbling explosion and Cael spun on the spot to see a small team of Sawbreakers on the beams supporting the shuttle. Ben was up there already, taking them out one at a time, but not before they had done a considerable amount of damage to the small civilization of the Off World Plaza Spaceport below.

Cael gasped and looked up. There was one directly above her, sawing through one of the metal structures that served as a catwalk for crew. Just opposite her, a small boy stood, trying to collect a bundle of blueprints that one of the older soldiers had requested. Her eyes darted between the boy and the beam, which was holding on to the rest of the structure by a hair's breadth.

Not thinking clearly, Cael sprinted forward, her feet pounding the ground to cover the distance between her and the boy as fast as possible. The beam began to fall…

She closed her eyes at the last second, feeling her arms wrap around the boy's middle. Her feet didn't stop, she just kept going, trying to clear the beam's impact zone. The blueprints were scattered everywhere.

There was an otherworldly shriek as Ben finished off the last of the Sawbreaker team, the one who had cut through the beam, which had just hit the ground with a terrible crunch. Dust flew up around it, along with bits of the stone walk it had crashed in to.

Cael opened her eyes, and saw through the dust that she was staring directly at the young boy. She figured he couldn't be more than ten. His eyes were wretched shut and he was trembling slightly. Several people ran forward once the dust cleared to help the two up, make sure no one was hurt. Shouts of "Oh my god!" and "Are you alright?" surrounded them. But once they had been hauled out of the dirt, Cael coughed once and smiled at the young boy.

"Hey, I'm Cael. You okay, bud?" she asked.

He looked sorrowfully at the papers that were torn and battered under the beam. "Yeah, I'm okay." He said, flatly, as one of the older soldiers led him off to a Medbot.

Ben came up behind Cael. "You okay?" he asked.

Cael nodded stiffly, swallowing. "Who was that kid?" she asked, quietly.

Ben looked at the boy across the courtyard as a blue Dexlabs Medbot checked him for injuries. "That's uhm… I think his name's Son."


	13. Chapter 13

"Son?" Cael breathed. "Venvor?"

"I think so. Why?" Ben asked.

"No reason. Why's he here? In the Plaza?"

"Well, I'd say they've got him working. Paired up with an older soldier."

"He's too young," Cael protested.

Ben shrugged. "Tell me about it. But he came to us. Folks are gone, house infected… I wanted to send him to Foster's, but he skipped the S.C.A.M.P.E.R. and came running back. Wants to learn how to fight those things. Told him to take it slow, put him up with Pulse." Ben pointed to the man in the green jacket who was with Venvor. "That's Pulse Walker."

Cael watched as the two started to walk away. Again, Ben asked if she was alright. "Yeah. Let me just… I'll catch up with you later." In a slip second decision, Cael ran off after the young boy and his caretaker. "Excuse me, Pulse – Pulse Walker?" she asked, tentatively.

He looked up from his charge. "Call me Ghost, if you want. Who're you?"

"Uhm… Cael Claw. But that's not important-"

Ghost stood up, punching her shoulder with a heavily gloved hand. "Sure it is! Just look what you've done for little Venvor, here – always in trouble, this one! And frankly, we couldn't afford another injury; we're behind schedule as it is…"

Cael dropped her voice. "Does he fight?" she asked him.

Ghost laughed. "What's that, a joke? Everyone in the Off World Plaza does engineering 'cept Ben, of course! Don't know what we'd do without him." He looked at her sideways. "Why do you ask?"

Her name was called from off in the distance. Absently, she clapped him on the shoulder. "Teach him. Get him out of here, over to Sector V." And she ran off, back to Ben.

"What was that all about?" Tennyson asked as they continued on.

Cael shook her head. "Nothing, nothing." She said airily.

"Nice one back there, by the way. Did you know that kid?"

Cael smiled. "I met him once. A long time ahead. It hasn't happened yet."

Ben laughed. "Yeah, if we're lucky, it never will. Speaking of lucky, sure was lucky you got him out of there."

She waved it off. "Nah. We're even, now."

"I'm starting to think," he said, looking over at her. "That we might be able to change Earth's future after all."

The two came to a green car, low to the ground. They both got in and Ben started the engine.

"I hope so," Cael said. "Because frankly," she buckled herself in and glanced at the boy in the driver's seat, "I want to go home."

He sighed. "We all do, Claw."

"Poor Son. When I met him in the future, he didn't tell me his parents were missing." She shook her head. "Never took the time to ask. But… come to think of it… I've only seen a handful of adults. Where'd they all go?"

"Some were killed, back before we got the Resurrect Ems set up. But after a while, we noticed a pattern: The Fusions were only attacking the adults. I guess Fuse didn't think much of the kids, didn't see any reason to bother with us. Dex took everyone who was left, all the adults, and put them in hiding, except for those that could take care of themselves, like my Grandpa Max, and that Father guy. But with the adults gone, all our military and figures of authority, we had no one left to fight. I mean, sure. I fight aliens on a daily basis. The KND does some hardcore battle now and then. But the invasion was so large scale, a few freelance soldiers wasn't going to cut it. So we put together an army. Dex teamed up with Providence a while back and put a few experimental soldiers through training. For a while, they were all we needed, a little help, I guess. But more and more Fusions started coming, so we enlisted more and more kids. Now we're global. Or… what's left of the globe. Every kid out there's been through The Academy and is trained for this."

Cael shifted uncomfortably. "Ben… what about my mom and dad? Do you know what happened to them?"

Ben chuckled. "Dex put them in hiding the moment we figured out what was going on. Your parents met his…. They apologized for your family's loss."

"What do you mean?"

Ben switched on the headlights as it started to get dark. "He told them you were dead. Or the equivalent of dead, anyway. When the time machine exploded last year and you weren't found, he told them that you'd been scattered throughout time and space."

"Well. That's lovely." She sighed. "At least they're safe." She said. He nodded in response. "Say. Where are we going?"

"Providence," he said. "It's a bit of a ways off, but it is _the_ most secure place since the invasion began." Cael watched the barren landscape rush by them as Ben sped down the road. Apparently, when Armageddon is upon you, speed limits don't count, she thought, amused. "Especially since the Fusion Matter started mixing with nanites. Worst E.V.O.'s Providence ever saw. Speaking of E.V.O.'s, Maybe we'll finally get to meet Rex…"

Cael coughed lightly. "I feel so out of the loop. Who's Rex?"

Ben laughed. "You'll meet him soon enough. Just, uhm… _brace yourself._"

"Brace myself?" She asked, laughing. "For what?"

...

Cael and Ben were ushered into the front gates of Providence in what she felt was a bit of a rush, but she supposed one could never be too cautious, what with a war raging outside and all. The pair were immediately sent into a decontamination chamber, where they stood in separate stalls. She looked confusedly at him for a moment. Ben caught the notion and took a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks as he held it. She frowned; why exactly was he making funny faces at her?

Very suddenly, a liquid poured from holes in the top of the chamber. It collected at her feet and rose, up to her ankles, her knees, her hips… What was this, bath time? The liquid kept rising, up to her chest, her neck… she began floating, treading the water-like substance to keep afloat as it lifted her off her feet. It was still rising, far past her height, and there was little room left between the surface of the liquid and the top of the chamber. With another panicked look at Ben, she saw him take one last breath before it completely overtook him. Realizing that the same was to happen to her in the next few seconds, she gasped greedily for breath before the substance smothered her mouth and nose.

Cael tried to look over at Ben again, but she couldn't see anything through the liquid, it had become dense and smoky in the chamber and was further obscured by the glass. In fact, she couldn't see anything that was going on outside the chamber, everything was just a vague blur.

Soon, the liquid around her was tinted a light green. Ben's was a darker green blob on what seemed like the opposite side of the room. The chamber became very cold and then the whole thing lit up red.

Cael's lugs started to burn in a plea for oxygen. Her head began to swim and she knocked on the glass of her tube, which only got colder. She wished that whatever decontamination was, that they'd hurry it up, because she could feel herself ready to start drowning in the foggy red-green goo they had her encased in.

To add insult to injury, a small surge of electricity was pulsed through the goop, causing Cael to yelp out loud – which felt very good for her lungs, to be able to release the breath she'd been holding, but her body quickly panicked when there as no air in the chamber to replace it. Absently, she decided that she did not like Providence for drowning her. And as that thought passed through her head, the red light went off and the tube began to warm up exponentially, and, to her relief, the fluid receded.

* * *

**So. Like I said before, I'm making it up as I go along. I've got good news and Bad news. Good news is I've got MOST of the end done. there's really just an epilogue to finish and tie up loose ends. Trust me, things get intense. Providence IS an important place for them, I promise, and we're done 'running around'. BAD news is, I have literally NO idea how to bridge the gap between now and what's probably a good two chapters ahead. SO. Feel free to set me on fire for my complete LACK of creativity and for all my procrastination. You can also blame VALVe and Portal. :D **

**ALSO. Happy to introduce a new FuFa Player Character. I have absolutely NO idea whose it is. This was written a while back, but I THINK I remember looking on the FuFa group on dA. So, if you recognize your player name in this mess, don't forget to let EVERYONE know! Especially me. **

**Love, Tibby 3**


	14. Chapter 14

The tube opened and she stumbled out, wet, sticky and sputtering for breath. "Nearly drowned and electrocuted!" she muttered into someone's arm. "A week ago, I would've hit you for this, Tennyson."

"Yeah." A boy laughed. "Most girls he meets want to beat him up, it's nothing new."

A towel was draped over her shoulders and she shivered, wiping the muck out of her eyes to look at whoever had caught her as she stumbled out of the tube. She understood that decontamination was important, especially the way Ben described it. But surely, _surely_ there had to be a better way to go about it.

The kid who stood in front of her couldn't have been any older than she was. He was in a red blazer that was now thoroughly soaked through with residual tube-goo, though he didn't seem to notice. Goggles gleamed from atop his head.

The Holosuit was naturally skintight, but she found herself pulling embarrassedly at the soaked cloth. What a sad sight she must be, wet and shivering and squinting like she was as blind as a bat. She tried to straighten herself out and look a little less bewildered than she really was, but she could hear Ben snickering at her from somewhere to the left. She flung a bit of the goop at him and heard a wet slap as it hit him square in the chest. She smiled as the other boy laughed.

"Name's Rex." The boy said after a moment, holding his hand out. She her vision back into focus, stood straight and made to return the gesture.

"Cael Claw." She said, grabbing his hand. She never did, though, because the moment their hands were about to meet, there was a stinging in her fingertips as a visible stream of vibrant blue electricity jumped between them. Cael snatched her hand back and cradled it protectively.

The two teenagers stared at their hands for a moment before Rex looked up at her. "I'm guessing a 'there's a spark between us' joke would be really inappropriate right now." He smiled.

She laughed. "What _was_ that?"

He shrugged. "Eh, it happens all the time."

"Really?"

"No. But I figured you would want to think otherwise." Cael frowned and followed the boy as he led her though the halls ofProvidence. "Glad you could make it here. I can't tell you how boring it's been. I haven't had any human contact outside the facility for weeks."

"Why not?"

"Mostly, it's because the higher-ups here atProvidencedon't trust me. They think I'd get in trouble out there."

"Well, that's not exactly fair, is it?" she frowned.

"No. But it's true." He laughed.

"I can personally attest to that," Ben grumbled, wiping off his face again. "I can't tell you how many times he's gotten out of the compound and nearly been vaporized by big-level Fusions."

"Six. It was only six. I could have handled them all, and if Providencehadn't shown up at _exactly_ the wrong moment-"

"Okay, hero." Tennyson interrupted. You can tell your stories later. Right now, I thought there was something you wanted to show me?"

"You act like I forgot. But look, I can drive you there, but then I've got to go meet Six. Pretty sure it's for a lecture. Probably about how I need to stop skipping out on his lectures."

"Drive us? I thought you weren't allowed outside of the facility?" Cael inquired.

He shrugged. "I'm not. But the place is so big, it'd take you forever to get there on foot.

She looked around blankly. "So. Driving usually requires a vehicle of some sort…"

A wide grin appeared on Rex's face as he took a step back.

It was so quick that she wasn't even really sure what happened, and if she hadn't experienced a three year interplanetary war in a few days, she would have called for an ambulance or a doctor or someone with band aids, because the entire lower half of his body stretched and morphed and mutated and before she even had her bearings back the loud mechanical thrumming of an engine filled the halls and she was clinging to Ben as they sped off.

"Where are we going?" she shouted over the wind.

"Petting Zoo!"

She frowned in confusion and clung tighter to him, probably squeezing all of the air from his lungs, as Rex literally flew down a flight of stairs, never once touching the ground.

He dropped them off at a pair of doors. Ben punched a key code into the panel nearby. The doors slid open to reveal a garden of sorts, two or three stories high.

"No need to worry, Claw. All the beasts here have been taken 't want them Terrefused, or else we'd have hundreds of EVO-Fusions running all over the place. GaveProvidencequite a hard time in the first few weeks of the invasion. But now, there's only one creature in here of any interest. Come on, it's over there." He pointed to a white biohazard tent that had been erected on the other side of the lake. "Let's go."

Cael pushed the white plastic flap back and ducked into the tent, Ben behind her. "Is that what we're here for?" she asked.

In the middle of the tent was a toxic green warp pad that thrashed and hissed violently. The base pulsated with its unnatural energy

"Sure is." He answered. "It just… cropped up here. We don't know where it leads to."

"Can't someone test it?"

Ben gave her that look, and she realized a second too late that it was possibly the stupidest thing she'd during the last few days. "Sure," he droned. "Be my guest."

"Sorry. Wasn't thinking clearly."

"Anyway, this," he said, showing her a small computer screen. "Is a log of all the Warp pads and fusion energy on Earth, and where each one lets the only one with this info, and it's all been meticulously cataloged. They have everything down, except this pad. No one can figure out where it lets out."

Cael looked at the screen, where a panoramic map of what was left of the world was lit up in a green grid. Pairs of different colored dots were scattered across the maps. Some of them had abbreviated location names, but most of them were numbers. 1/69, 2/69, 3/69, so on and so forth.

"Those are Fusion Lairs," Ben explained. "There are sixty nine of them, sixty nine lairs and sixty nine pairs of warp pads. The others have cropped up all around the world, but they all have their pairs. This is the only one that we can't find a pair to. Without it, Fuse could send his entire legions right intoProvidenceand we wouldn't even know." Ben tapped a section of the screen, right where the lonesome yellow dot was and it automatically zoomed in, showing a map ofProvidence.

Cael leaned over his shoulder. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to a blip on the radar. It was a fast moving dot signifying a highly concentrated energy. Ben frowned and played with the controls, thinking it might have been a mistake that he could filter out. "I don't know… that's weird…"

"Ben," she said, darkly. "Where's it going?"

The two watched the blip as it raced towards a warp pad that was represented by a small yellow dot.

Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump, the ground shook with every step the monster outside the tent took. It was running directly for them. Ben looked up at the door flap on the tent. "This one – get down!" he cried, pulling her to the ground and shielding her as the Fusion monster burst through the tent. There was a moment of fear in the girl's chest as the monster pounded past her and Ben, screaming in otherworldly octaves. It ran _right past them_, and nestled itself amidst the Fusion drone, Cael noticed, and there was a bright flash of light and a whooshing noise before the beast disappeared, whisked away t some distant place. They remained on the ground for several seconds after its departure before standing.

"What just happened?" Ben asked, breathless.

"I, uhm… I – I don't… I don't know," she stuttered, taking her head in her hands. She suddenly became aware of a painful throbbing in her head.

"Are you okay?" he asked, noticing her.

Cael didn't hear him; she suddenly felt sick to her stomach and, she realized as she fought the urge to vomit, sore in every part of her body that wasn't already numb. Her extremities tingled as if she'd been struck by lightning. The onset of these symptoms happened all in the blink of an eye, or so it seemed to her. For all she knew, she could have been like this for days with Ben standing there, supporting her weight, his shouts for a med team seemed far off and unintelligible before she toppled forward in his arms, unconscious.

* * *

**So I'm back on track, for the most part. I found that missing book that contained most of the link between the last chapter and the ending. Let's hope I can actually get through this. **

**LONG LIVE THE HUMAN RACE.**

**Cheers,**

**Tibby**


	15. Chapter 15

"…levels are stable, brain activity normal, no foreign influence we can find…"

"So you mean she's…?"

"Asleep. She passed out from exhaustion." The voices of Agent Six and Ben Tennyson came into focus slowly, like and old camera. Cael stirred slightly and opened her eyes. Ben was shaking his head, laughing lightly.

"Dex _told_ me she was tired, hadn't slept for a while. I thought he maybe meant a day or two, but a whole week? If I'd known, I would've gotten her to sleep on the way here."

She sat up groggily. "Who would have been able to sleep with that Purple Filth stuff blaring from your speakers?" she smiled tiredly at him.

"Well, good morning to you too." He said. "How come you didn't say anything?"

She shrugged. "I wasn't tired a few seconds ago-"

"Hours. You've been out for hours."

The look on her face registered surprise. "Hours ago. I guess my adrenaline kick just wore out. I don't know, but I'm okay." She rubbed her eyes tiredly.

"Good thing, too," said a familiar voice. A short figure was silhouetted in the door way, the flap to which was pulled back t provide room for a connector of sorts. "All this work just to be out cold during Planet Fusion's final hours? Unacceptable!"

"Dex!" she exclaimed, heading for him. He shoved into the tent and turned her around without saying a word, pulling her along with him as he walked, leading her to a med tent that was attached to the quarantine unit.

She was still dazed from her 'nap,' and barely caught what he was saying to her as they walked. "No human being can enter Planet Fusion's atmosphere safely, too much radiation. That's why it's important we found the warp pad. We can safely travel to their planet now." Dexter explained to her, looking over his shoulder at the preoccupied Providence Agents. "They think that this is a research mission." He dropped his voice so that only Cael could hear him. "But I've been researching the planet since it appeared in our sky."

"Of course you have." She said.

"How could I not? A brand new planet, it was exciting, intriguing! So I sent probes, rovers, all sorts of artificial life – I _know_ this planet."

"So then what are we doing?" she asked as the raced down corridors.

"We're sending our first Human to Planet Fusion." He said as they entered the tent. "Have a seat."

Cael snorted, sitting on the fold out burlap cot and watched as Dexter moved into the adjacent room. "Who gets _that_ honor?"

He didn't answer for a moment, shuffling through the equipment. "Someone I trust." He said. "Someone who has trained harder than the rest of us. A soldier that can adapt and survive against the odds."

Cael adjusted her position on the cot, contemplating what Dexter had said, trying to figure who it was who was going to Planet Fusion. Numbuh One, perhaps, or Ben. Ben had a lot of experience with aliens.

The boy sighed and added one more characteristic to this ideal soldier. "Someone who's already been exposed to the Time Field."

Cael's eyes snapped to his figure behind the white plastic divider between them. "You can't meanme." She whispered.

The boy genius paused before setting down whatever it was he was working with and went to join Cael. "It has to be you. It can't be anyone else."

"Of course it can!" she protested. "There are hundreds of soldiers, all much better at this than I am. Jeez, Dexter, they're _all_ much better at this than I am."

"Planet Fusion came into out galaxy through a wormhole, a sort of space warp." He said, before taking a deep breath and wincing. "For the last month, I've been telling everybody – soldiers, Providence, friends and family – that I opened the wormholes to try to get you back home. But all I can do is _manage_ them, and even that's difficult. I don't know where they came from," he confessed. "But they're dangerous. Planet Fusion is drenched in Time energy, and if anyone were to step foot on that planet, it would rip them apart."

"Gee. Thanks, Dex."

"Stoopeed girl! You've already been _exposed_ to the Time Field! It won't affect you! That's why you're the only one who can go!"

She shook her head in disbelief. "The Earth is doomed."

"In three years, the future you saw, the one without you here – we were at our weakest. The Human race was as good as dead. But here, now, we have you, and we have come closer to winning this war in a week than in two years without you. What does that tell you?"

"That you have some insane dumb luck." She said stiffly.

"No." he looked her in the eye. "But we've got you, Cael Claw, and that's all we need. Just think – Fuse is scared of you. He would have to be, or else he wouldn't have sent a Terrefuser into Dexlabs for you. You're much more valuable to this fight than you think. _I_ trust you with this. It's time you started trusting you. Now it's either you go, or we pass up any chance of ending this."

Cael moaned inwardly. "Ending this." She shook her head again. "If this isn't a research mission, then what exactly am I going to be doing up there?"

"You're going to win this war for us." He said, sternly. "Now wait here for a moment, there are some last-minute preparations we need to go through before we send you to Fusion."

Cael sat on the fold out cot in the middle of the tent, waiting for Dexter. He was in the next room and Cael could see his small silhouette though the thin white plastic that served as a door. Her heart beat in her chest. She was terrified. She couldn't believe this was happening.

Dexter was prepping her, not for an on-field medical procedure, like these tents were usually used for, but for at trip to a different _planet_. Hardly a vacation, she thought, wringing her hands together nervously. The boy genius pushed past the curtain and back into the room, a small syringe in his hands. Cael rolled up her sleeve and let him inject the contents of the syringe into the flesh of her arm. "That will numb the pain, as well as act as a sedative for your anxiety." He motioned to her fidgeting hands, which she quickly sat on, going red in the cheeks.

"Numb pain?" she asked. "What exactly are we doing?"

The boy was searching his pockets as he spoke. "Once onto foreign terrain, you will be susceptible to any number of bacteria, or even an inhospitable atmosphere. We're protecting you from Planet Fusion. With this." he pulled out of his inner coat pocket a small metallic staple gun and a plastic box. Tenderly, Dexter took from the box a small computer ship, placing it on the face of the gun.

"I don't like this, Dex. Is it safe?"

He scoffed in response. "Don't be _stoopeed_, of course it's safe. It's my technology!" he said, walking up behind her. "Move your hair, please."

Cael obeyed nervously, raking her hair to the side, exposing the back of her neck, She felt the cold metal of the gun at the base of her skull. Cael screamed and slipped off the cot and onto the floor, clutching the back of her neck as the small chip, no bigger than her thumbnail, was shot into her skull, attaching itself to her nervous chord. It was the most excruciating pain she'd ever experienced. When she regained her voice, it was hoarse. "I thought it was supposed to numb pain!"

"It did." Dexter said, quietly, helping her off the floor. "This has been in development since the war began. I knew we were going to have to make a mission to Planet Fusion sometime in the future. But when I tried to implant it into lab subjects – monkeys and ducks, and even a subject of more considerable weight, a horse – they literally _died_ of the pain inflicted."

Cael grunted as she stood, swallowing the pain as she took a few shaky steps forward, picking up her Nitrogenic Vaporizer. "Thank God for the pain killer." She said thickly. "Let's do this." She started for the door flap that led to the warp room.

* * *

**GUYS GUYS I DID IT. IT'S ALL DONE, ALL OF IT UP TO THE VERY END! IT TOOK ME TWO YEARS BUT IT'S DONE.**


	16. Chapter 16

Dexter spoke quickly as they walked though the corridors of the quarantine tent. "This pad will take you to theForsakenValley. Follow the path that's been worn down by Fusion and it will take you to the Precipice. From there it's a straight shot to Fuse's Fortress. Once there, you need to attach your NanoCom to the biggest source of Fusion energy you can find. Open the mainframe and set the detonation time. Cael, look at me." He stopped, turning around in front of her, stopping just in front of the area where the pad resided. "Above all, it is imperative that you remember to warp back to Earth before detonation." He took out his NanoCom and started fiddling with the controls. "I'm sending the coordinates to your NanoCom now. This will bring you straight back to Dexlabs. We'll be waiting."

She noticed the worried expression set on his face and smiled at the younger boy. No sense giving him her anxiety. He needed a clear head. "Operation Fusion Fall is a-go, huh?" she laughed nervously, feeling light headed as they turned back to the drone room. What was she doing, making up stupid names for the one mission that meant the life or death of the planet?

The two pushed back the flap that sectioned off the quarantine and entered the next room. The Fusion warp pad sat in the middle of the room, the operating drone writhing like mad as a pair ofProvidenceagents stabilized it, making it safe for human transport.

They stepped back and gave Cael the a-okay, allowing her to step into the glowing circle at the pad.

"Cael!" Dexter exclaimed, remembering something. She looked up. He didn't do this often, since he was a man of science who didn't believe in such silly things. "Good luck." He smiled.

Through the green tentacles, he could just see her smile back, saluting him before being whisked away to another planet.

* * *

Lord Fuse looked at the fusion standing proudly in front of him. With a mere nod of his head, the creature took off, back to its hiding spot. The human thought they were _so very_ cunning. Finding that warp pad was their biggest triumph yet!

The Fusion Lord scowled at the idea. Those imbeciles. He had planted that warp pad directly in the center of their precious Providencefor a _reason_. The fact that they thought the placement of his warp drones was random sickened him.

It was the discovery of that warp drone that led them straight to his glorious planet. They had _rejoiced_ in their 'discovery.' They thought they had the key to winning the war in their hands, now.

Fusion Cael was positioned outside. Fuse growled in approval.

All their miraculous discovery would amount to was death for their beloved savior.

* * *

Cael stumbled out of the Fusion Drone and gasped for air, the sulfur in the atmosphere burning her lungs. Her immediate thought as she looked up at the blood red skies mottled with acid clouds was a prayer that Dexter's technology worked.

It took her a moment to adjust her balance, since walking on Planet Fusion took a great deal of patients, and even more footwork. The rocks beneath the shoes of her Holosuit were craggily and loose and bound to dislodge just in time to send you stumbling forward, trying to regain your balance. She paused, examining her surroundings – the rocks, black and all but glowing with Fusion energy, rose in walls around her. The lowest point on the planet was apparently a rock quarry.

Cael swallowed and began her impossible trek to level ground. The walls of the quarry crumbled and toppled and tumbled out from under her feet and hands, sending her sliding down the cliff face, jagged pieced of rocks cutting her Holosuit and getting at her face and neck before she was able to right herself and start again. She inched slowly up the wall, digging her boots as far into the cliff face as she could.

She scrambled over the last piece of craggily rock, face to face with the precipice. "Dexter…" she moaned as her eyes fell on the horizon. The terrain scans were perfect in determining rock formations, cliffs and ravines, but there were obviously some things that the scan wasn't too great at picking up. Dexter had said that, once at the Precipice, it was a straight shot to Fuse's Fortress. In fact, it was anything but. First, she gathered, she would have to maneuver her way through Fuse's Labyrinth.

Cael stared dismally at the vast expanse of fusion matter in the ravine at the other end of the Precipice. It twisted and curved in all different sickly manners. But it excited her at the same time. At the center of the maze was a tiny speck of hope: A toxic green glow that seemed to move of its own accord.

A Fusion Warp Pad.

Cael tore her eyes from the pinpoint of green in the middle of the labyrinth, searching the horizon. There was no castle, no fortress, nothing. That warp pad _had_ to lead to Fuse's Lair.

* * *

She gasped, bowing her head and stumbling through the maze. The walls reached out and grabbed at her, trying to pull her into them. She plowed through them blindly. She twisted and turned and had no idea which way she was going – the only thing she knew was that it was the RIGHT way. Something, presumably the fusion energy emanating from the warp pad, was guiding her. It was calling her to it, a low, audible wail that silenced all other thought. Cael's body moved mechanically, subconsciously unaware of her surroundings. It evened her breathing and gave her the strength to fight her ay past the fusion walls of the maze.

She pushed forward harder; the closer she got, the less she became aware of what was going on around her.

At least, she broke though to the center. The inertia of the force she exerted while running sent her flying across the clearing. The moment she hit the ground, the low droning the warp pad was emitting stopped, leaving a ringing in her ears, the only trace it was ever even there. Cael blinked the haze from her eyes, taking in her new location. She stood slowly. How had she gotten there? Her gaze fell upon the Fusion Drone in the center of the warp pad. Slowly, she remembered her plan – Dexter's plan.

All you have to do is get to Fuse's Lair, she reminded herself.

She took a few wobbly steps forward to be enveloped by the writhing tentacles.

Cael stepped out of the warp pad. The air here was thicker and damp. Indeed, a low layer of green and silver mist swirled at her feet. The walls and ceiling were earthen and smelled sickly sweet of decaying organic matter.

She stepped carefully, now wary of where the fusion drone had taken her. She looked over her shoulder out of paranoia. To her horror, she could just see the drone slinking back into the pad. She ran back, shouting in frustration. As she reached it, the tentacles had slipped beneath the ground. The toxic glow of the warp pad dimmed, eliminating a significant light source in the already dim tunnel.

She swallowed hard, holding her back against the wall, scanning the opposite side of the tunnel before wetting her lips and raising the NanoCom to her mouth. "Dexter. Pick it up, Dexter…Dex…" she whispered harshly. The NanoCom remained pitifully silent.

Cael took a deep breath and docked the device, advancing forward slowly by the glow of the mist and the occasional fluorescent mushroom that decorated the walls.

She was trapped down here for a reason, she knew it. She scolded herself for using the illegitimate warp pad. They couldn't afford such stupid mistakes, not now, not when they were so close! Cael became very frustrated with herself. All this work, all this war, all those people back on Earth depending on you, she thought, and you go and get yourself stuck in a hole. You haven't learned anything. You're just as useless as you were in the very beginning.

You are a complete disappointment – to Dexter, to Numbuh Five, to Ben, and to all the people of Planet Earth, because now you're trapped and Earth doesn't stand a chance. How could they have thought that _you_ could lead them to victory? You can't fight, you're constantly in your own way, you can't lift a weapon larger than a loaf of bread. What use were you in this war? What good were you to anybody back on Earth? Even now, Dexter's regretting sending _you_. He only did it because he felt bad that he got you stuck in this mess.

You know I'm right.

Cael stopped. For the first time, she heard the voice clearly. It was _her_ voice… but at the same time, it wasn't. She couldn't pinpoint the differences, but the voice she heard was much more sinister, as if it had been deliberately trying to demoralize her. Cael looked around cautiously. There was nothing visible at either end of the tunnel, now. How far had she walked in her passion? She could be miles in and not even know it! She took a deep breath, inhaling the fusion mist, trying to clear her head. It was a fusion trick, it had to be.

Why don't your precious heroes fight my Lord's children?

"I don't care." Cael responded stiffly, pressing on.

Because none of them could bear to hear the truth. Not even your God-like leader, a mere child, everyone questioning him, no one putting faith in him. Why should they? Everything Dexter has done has only led Earth further into Abyss. Soon, it will be overpowered entirely. Why should any human put their trust in a boy who has done nothing but… cause _accidents_.

"Dex is a genius." She said solidly. "And if it weren't for him, we would have lost this war a long time ago."

All your heroes, the people you put your faith in, all cowards, all too weak to face their Fusions.

"Is that what you are? My Fusion?"

A stronger you. A _better_ you.

"Yeah." She said, holding her weapon at the ready. "I'm starting to figure out why no one wants to fight their fusion. You're kinda rude."

I'm _honest_.

The girl scoffed. "Well, _Cael_, your honesty is flawed. I did learn something." The glowing mist illuminated a figure in front of her. The figure's eyes glowed a deadly red in the dark. The fusion raised her own weapon, so that they stood there, face to face, mirror images of each other.

And what's that?

"This is a war. There's no _time_ to be scared." She said bitterly, firing the first shot.


	17. Chapter 17

Dexter was crouched behind the Fusion Drone. His fingers trembled as he programmed the small silver metal box he held in one hand. From the flat top of the device protruded several wires, which snaked along the ground and were connected to the base of the Fusion Warp Pad. The Drone seemed to sense this foreign disturbance and was writing more animatedly than usual, in quick jerky movements that seemed to convey discomfort.

"What exactly is that for, Dexter?"

The young boy took care that his voice did not falter, that he spoke in the official manner he usually did when explaining his machinery to Agent Six. "It's a disruptor." He said flatly.

"A disruptor?"

"It will eradicate the signal between Earth and Planet Fusion, that way no more spawn can get in."

The providence agent came up behind Dexter and crouched by his side. "Have you forgotten you just sent a human being to that hell?" he asked darkly. "Eradicate the signal and you've just as well as killed her. I can't let you do that."

Dexter stared at the console in his hand. "Agent Six, you are a remarkable soldier." He said, "But I'm afraid you've got a bit of an authority problem."

The Providence Agent tried to pry it from his fingers, but Six was too slow. Before he even had his hand wrapped around the cold box, Dexter had activated the disruptor.

The Fusion Drone emit a high pitched mechanical whine that sounded sickeningly like a scream as it thrashed and twisted in the confines of its pad, the base of which started to smoke from the strain of the electrical input.

There was no turning the device off, Six learned as he tried to deactivate it. Before long, the box itself started sputtering with the strain of keeping the feed live. The once vibrant green tentacles of the Drone had turned a green brown and began to shrivel like a plant, its limbs twitching under the influence of the electricity coursing through it.

With one last effort, the control box exploded, severing the feed. The brightly glowing drone stopped twitching and its limbs relaxed. Slowly, the light it emit died to leave behind the heap of burnt Fusion matter.

Dexter wiped the soot from his glasses. "There." He said, softly. "Now she can finish her job. _No interference._"

Agent Six looked at Dexter, away from the stunning sight that had just unfolded in front of him. In a part of his mind, he couldn't believe that Dexter just cut that girl off from Planet Earth, even though the rest of him was already processing what he'd just said. "Interference? You _ordered_ Providence to investigate the warp pad. The one you just _destroyed."_

"Yes." He said curtly, heading for the door. "I lied."

* * *

Cael threw herself against the stalagmite as the fusion energy grazed past her. She cocked the gun, her hand slipping the first time out of sheer terror of the situation. Just because she knew she had to keep a level head didn't mean she knew how to.

She jumped out from behind her protection, running across to the next nearest rock formation, firing at her fusion counterpart as she did so. She crouched slightly with her back against another rock, holding the gun up to her chest, finger on the trigger, always on the trigger. Cael's mind raced. She was in the middle of a war, in a one-on-one battle that could possibly mean life or death for the rest of Planet Earth. She didn't have _time_ to be inexperienced. She'd been fighting with the rest of the Human race for a week. Only a week, but she _had_ to have learned something. Dexter's intelligence, Ben's force, Blossom's strategy, Rex's determination, Edd's ingenuity, Venvor's spirit… Cael took a deep breath and spun out from behind her cover.

There, not a foot in front of her, stood Fusion Cael, arm outstretched, gun in hand, finger on the trigger, always on the trigger. Her fist clenched and the fusion energy shot out of the barrel of the gun, making it jerk slightly.

Cael felt a pain in her stomach, but it faded quickly, along with the rest of the world around her.

* * *

Her body bobbed slightly, masking her breathing, which she figured was lucky since she could hear Fusions around her. Disturbingly close, in fact. But what she didn't understand was why she couldn't feel the ground beneath her. Every few seconds as she came back to consciousness, she felt like she was falling, and wondered vaguely if it were true as she stirred awake.

Cael opened her eyes just enough to get a peek of what was going on around her. The Fusion Guards were hauling her through some sort of massive room. She didn't exactly have time to admire the architecture, for her mind was elsewhere, and she needed to make as much sense of the situation as soon as possible. Their leisurely little stroll though Fuse's Fortress could come to an abrupt end at any second.

It was all dawning on her. Dexter and Mandark hadn't opened the worm holes on Earth. Cael wanted to bang her head against a brick wall. Dexter had even told her that, back when they were readying to transport her! He hadn't created them, no, no, no! He and Mandark could merely _control_ them. They were natural, a side effect! All this, Cael thought, all the war and misery, it was all the effect of one thing, one tiny little event that, in normal history, would have been overlooked completely. One tiny little event that Cael had witnessed only a week ago. But to everyone else, it had been an entire _year_. An entire year since the explosion in Dexter's laboratory, the same explosion that had torn apart the very fabric of time and space, creating tiny little wormholes all over the surface of Earth… and one very big one, somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy.

_That's_ how Planet Fusion got here! Cael nearly exclaimed. She fought to keep her body limp in the grip of the Meteoric Guardian.

They carried her all the way from that dark cavern where she'd collapsed to… she didn't know where, yet. But at the moment, her thoughts were on how, exactly _how_ she was around to find out. Her fusion counterpart had shot her point blank in the stomach. She wiggled her toes as much as she dared, just t make sure her lower half was still there.

What had happened in that space of time she'd blacked out?

She wasn't presented with much of an opportunity to ponder over the matter, as the grip the Guards had on her was suddenly releases, dropping her to the ground with more force than was really necessary.

Cael lay limp on the cold stone ground. The Guards had slunk away from her body at the sound of a deep hissing growl. For a moment, Cael was unsure what the noise was; then, she realized: Fuse. It was Fuse, commanding his troops. For some reason, Cael had always imagined Lord Fuse to live up to his title, to be regal and proper. But what she was hearing was a mess of growls and roars. She didn't know what to make of it, and it unnerved her that she didn't know what he was saying.

Suddenly, there was a blinding pain as her body flew through the air, smacking the wall behind her and falling once again, limp, to the ground. She heard a crunch as she landed on her side; the face of her NanoCom was shattered.

Cael bit the inside of her lip in agony. Fuse had _shot_ her, she thought as his harsh, barking laugh erupted through the cavern. She fought the urge to shout in pain – whatever he had done burned her skin and lingered. But _that_ pain… _that_ was nothing compared to the pain she felt in her own head: a screeching, howling, terrible noise, yet crystal clear and completely understandable, in perfect English.

_"Feeble, desperate Humans! Do not rejoice in Earth's Finest Hour, it has failed you! I have here, your brightest light and savior, fallen to one of MY children!"_

Cael moaned inwardly at the force of the voice in her head. 'Fallen to one of MY children.' So it was Fuse, speaking straight into her. There was that regality she had expected. Absently, she wondered if the others on Earth heard his voice as intensely as she did, if everyone was in such excruciating pain.


	18. Chapter 18

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Dexter clutched his hands to his head and sunk further against the wall. For months now, he had often thought about giving Fuse a piece of his mind, figuratively speaking, of course. He just never expected for Fuse to accept his offer. "_I have here, your brightest light and savior, fallen to one of MY children! Her body shall forever rot on my planet to serve as a trophy of my victory!"_

Dexter gasped and cringed, a grimace set on his face. The line echoed in his head over the roar of Fuse's voice. "_Outside of my fortress is a very large, very deadly weapon, capable of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people in one sweep. Heroes of Earth, hear me now: You will surrender. All military leaders will assemble at your headquarters you call 'Dexlabs.' Do so or watch your innocent soldiers fall in your place. Earth is Mine._"

Dexter fumbled blindly for his NanoCom. "You heard him," he spoke weakly into the device. "All force leaders, assemble here. All others are to assemble at Sector V, Providenceor City Hall, whichever is closest. _Now._" He ended the transmission. If he could get everyone to one of the safe areas, he could activate the fusion shields. Granted, they were still experimental, but if there was a chance of keeping everyone safe, until they could plan their next move…

_'I have here, your brightest light and savior, fallen to one of MY children!'_

Dexter swallowed hard and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, lifting the NanoCom to his lips again. He pressed the call button. "Cael. Cael, can you hear me?" he asked, quietly. He waited.

The NanoCom was silent.

The boy genius pressed the projection button – this would open a direct holographic link between their two NanoComs. A small projection appeared just above the face of the device. The window remained black for a second, before blinking off.

Cael's NanoCom was nonresponsive.

Dexter dropped his device to the floor.

* * *

She kept her body limp and unresponsive as the Guards dragged her body across the dirt floor and flung her out of the room.

She rolled to a stop, laying still for a moment until the growl of the Fusions faded into the distance. She partially opened one eye to check her surroundings. She was laying at the edge of a steep faced ravine. Quickly, she shuffled back, onto dependable ground, standing and brushing herself off. Dirt from Planet Fusion was ridiculously heavy.

Giant death laser, huh?

The fact that Fuse was currently locked in war with Earth and wanted the whole of the Human race dead was a good indicator that he wasn't bluffing. There was a death laser somewhere out here. The answer was, where. She faced the fortress, a large black obsidian structure that rose into the blood red sky. Several spokes jutted off of the top of the building, all pristine and uniform. Any one of those spokes could be it.

She took a step forward, hoping to investigate, when her foot caught on the pipe. She looked down and saw a thick black pipe that had been dug into the ground, closer to the Fusion energy core of the planet. It snaked off around the side of the building, cleverly hidden by the black gravel and dirt. She grinned slyly and took off, following the pipe's path.

A part of her wanted to think that it was too easy – but then she remembered that everyone really did think she was dead, and a dead girl doesn't just go blowing up entire planets. This was too easy because, for once, she'd played her cards right.

She skidded to a stop as the pipe snaked up the wall of the fortress. She looked up. The cone of the sweeper was high above the ground, set sturdily in the wall of the castle. The building itself was made of a sleek, other worldly stone, impossible, Cael thought, feeling the slippery surface, to climb. Not without equipment, or a pair of wings or _some_ kind of propulsion. Cael backed away from the wall and searched the rock face. So much for being too easy. If she could clear the first section of the wall, up to the first ledge, she could use the gaps in the stone as hand and footholds.

Cael had a thought.

The was sleek enough that she could slide on her back while pressed against it, and her gun could provide enough propulsion if she could just overload it…

She fiddled with the power dial and the internal charging unit, all the while hearing Dexter's voice in the back of her head. "You _stoopeed_ girl! Do you have any idea how powerful – how dangerous – how _delicate_ that piece of machinery is? It uses internal nuclear fusion and dangerous chemicals! One wrong move and you could vaporize yourself!" her Dexter-conscience scolded. She ignored him, though, raging towards the gun that grew hot in her hands. The barrel was going to explode with what he called "Nuclear X." Simply enough, it was a combination of Nuclear energy and Chemical X, which was powerful enough to vaporize any moderate amount of organic matter. Cael had seen one of these in use before, back in the future. A soldier she'd passed on the way toHero Square had been battling a few Newspaper Ninjas. Cael had stopped for a moment in awe as she watched the boy take out monster after monster. They just… disappeared. Cael had seen the weapons they used within five minutes of waking up in that corrupt, desperate future, but she could have stood in awe at that battle forever, watching the beasts blink out of existence. And she was sure she would have, had one not come at her.

She _knew_ how powerful a weapon of this caliber was. She _knew_ how dangerous, she told her Dexter-conscience. But Fuse was more powerful, and more dangerous than every Neutronic Vaporizer down there on Earth.

Cael slammed her back against the slick wall and waited. The gun was going to overload, and she had to wait until _just_ before that happened, or else there wouldn't be enough thrust. The beeping of the internal charging unit quickened, the hilt of the weapon growing almost unbearably hot, even through the Holosuit gloves. Cael closed her eyes before looking up at the ledge she needed to reach.

She fired.

Burning hot Nuclear X erupted out of the barrel, disintegrating the miserable fusion foliage that existed at her feet. The force of the explosion pushed Cael further up against the wall until she started to slide up. But it was hardly going to be enough. She was only halfway there and she could already feel the Vaporizer cooling, losing power. She gritted her teeth as she pressed the emergency release button – it was a feature only used when the gun has been decommissioned, to prevent the buildup of Nuclear energy long after the Chemical X had been used up.

But Dexter, in engineering the device, had not planned on anyone using the button while there was still Chemical X in the gun's reserves.

The force nearly tripled, sending her flying up the wall, clear up to the ledge. She was able to drop down onto the surface and was pleased to find that it held her weight.

She dropped the gun to the ground, where it vomited its toxic energy, sputtering on the ground as the reserves ran out.

* * *

The room was heavy with grim anticipation. DeeDee hugged her little brother, and even allowed Mandark's affection. The Tennysons stood together, as did the Utonium family. It was odd; for the last year, families had been split apart, always fearful for each other, not knowing if a daughter or sister or cousin was going to check in that night. But now, they were finally all together, facing potential annihilation, the genocide of the Human race. But they were all content. All silent, all together, awaiting that pivotal moment when they figured out if the shields over the building were going to hold or not.

* * *

Cael sat herself on the base of the magnificent, deadly machine. It was something that resembled a gamma laser that you would see in movies, only this one was worse. The only thing this shot down to earth was pure fusion energy – more than enough to destroy anything it touched. It was like acid, or antimatter. Pure corrosive energy. She pried the wiring compartment open and grabbed her NanoCom, staring hopelessly at the inner working of the machine. Gently, she placed the communication device on the farrago of wires and breakers and circuits. It attached just fine, but it just hung there, useless.

The girl felt her pulse quicken. Fusion Fall was Earth's last stand. It was all executed through her NanoCom, hers _specifically_, and it was _dead_.

Dead.

The Earth was doomed.

It was a thought that she couldn't help from surfacing.

The NanoCom was dead. Completely useless. Once the screen was cracked, that meant that the internal workings of the NanoCom would immediately stop, to avoid an information hack by removing the chip inside the device. It was a security measure that Dexter had implemented for fear of Fuse getting hold of one, but now, the possibility seemed trivial compared to the predicament she faced. Cael reached for the face of her NanoCom, hoping with every fiber of her being that it would reactivate. When she touched it, she felt a slight buzzing in her fingertips, like they had gone numb.

Suddenly, her Holosuit went haywire. Instead of the default black, the suit projected bizarre images. Some seemed festive for the holidays, others tactical camouflage. Cael sat and watched her suit as it ran through a cycle of images, only removing her hand from the cracked surface of the NanoCom when her suit flickered between a smoky pink with little splattered hearts on it and a Mardi-Gras theme. Immediately, it powered down, slowly reverting to the generic black swimsuit material.

In a mad flash of inspiration, Cael tore the black glove off her right hand, staring at her exposed skin as it were the most intriguing thing in the world.

She remembered something that she'd watched on the news months ago, back in her old home, before there was Planet Fusion or the war for Earth. It was a simple news report of some experiments that would better the lives of all mankind. The people had been told that they would cure all illness, eradicate hunger all around the world. But something had gone wrong, the unfinished product had gone in the wrong direction and changed people into monsters. She'd never seen any herself, but she'd heard the rumors, and the news reports that came into her small town all the way inMinnesota.

They were tiny machines.

They were called Nanites.

And, after the laboratory accident, they were in _every living thing._

Cael hoped. She knew that they weren't active in everyone. Save for a few, the few who make the evening news, the Nanites were completely dormant in humans. But Cael remembered that one spectacular moment back atProvidence. How she'd met Rex, an E.V.O. himself, how they'd shaken hands, and the electrical surge that had flowed between them…

She held her breath as the deadly machine that towered above her charged for a cleansing sweep across the earth. Tenderly, she brought her bared hand back up to the broken NanoCom. Her fingertip touched the cracked LCD face.

For a moment, nothing happened. Cael could feel her heart leap into her throat. This was their last chance; it _had_ to work.

Then, miraculously, there was a click-click-click from somewhere inside the device before the screen flickered to life. Cael could feel tears running down her cheeks; happy tears summoned by the joy of her sheer luck. The holographic interface was activated, shaky and broken looking, but it worked, and that's what was important. Cael navigated her way through the NanoCom, just as Dexter had taught her back on Earth, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

The Energy Cannon reached the height of its charge. A sickening, steady note vibrated through every bit of the girl as she accessed the 'set detonation' menu.

_Detonation Activated_.


	19. Chapter 19

The whole of Dexlabs shook violently, throwing every hero to the ground. Equipment toppled all around them, beakers and other fragile instruments shattering like glass bombs as they fell off the shelves and counters onto the floor. The lights flickered and a gas pipe burst somewhere in the room. Everything went dark and there were gasps and shouts of "Everyone alright?" once the activity ceased.

Dexter used his control watch to activate the back up generators. One of the Utonium sisters welded the pipe shut with her heat vision. Once everyone was up and accounted for, he clambered to the compartment door, stumbling out of the debris into the hall and rushing out of the building to see if the shields held.

He broke out into the light as he exited the building, blinking rapidly from this unexpected change. The sun had been blocked out by the fusion smog in this area for some time. But then, he realized: the light wasn't sunlight. It was the light of the explosion taking place in the sky.

He spoke into his NanoCom, his voice barely above an awed whisper. He could hear it echoing through the building behind him. "You guys… should come and see this."

Within a minute, the heroes had gathered behind him. Some stopped short just outside of Dexlabs, others ran past Dexter. Those who could fly did so happily, only retreating to the ground once the heat of the explosion became too much for them. Many cried, many laughed.

Planet Fusion was exploding from its core. Chunks of fiery terrain rained down on the Earth, almost as a final, ineffectual attempt to bring the Earth down with it. But there was too much earth for it to be brought down by a few chunks of debris.

The boy genius shook his head slowly. "I don't understand." He breathed.

"Well that's not something we hear often." Ben came behind him and clapped a hand to his back. "Looks like Claw made it, after all."

Dexter's heart leapt into his throat. She was alive! Fuse had been wrong; Cael was alive! Tearing away from the magnificent sight unfolding in front of him, he ran back into Dexlabs, clambering over the rubble in the broken building, shouting for her. She _had_ to be here somewhere. He had set the warp command to bring her back to Dexlabs himself! He knew she was here. In his head, he counted the coordinates: floor one, grid 37a. Floor one, grid 37b. Floor one, grid 37c. And so on with every marker he passed.

Dexter had set her coordinates for floor one grid 37g, the same room he had stood in the moment planet Fusion exploded.

Halfway over the pipe he was scaling, he stopped.

Dexter had been in the room when the planet exploded. Cael was supposed to have warped back to earth by then. In a mad frenzy, he doubled his efforts, picking up his pace to the broken, abandon room they had previously occupied. His breath was ragged, fighting off the possibility of an empty room and making his head swim. Adrenaline pimped thorough his veins, pushing him on though the dimly lit maze of halls and rubble.

The door was stuck fast when he finally reached the room, but he threw his weight against it and was able to shoulder it open.

The room was empty.

His breathing was heavy, his eyes darting around the room for any sign that she'd been here. He raised his watch to his mouth. "Computress; scan for life in Dexlabs Grid 37."

There was a pause; Dexter's watch made a series of beeps as Computress transmitted the data. "Number of life forms detected in Dexlabs Grid 37: One."

Dexter swallowed hard. "Scan for life on Dexlabs Floor One."

"Number of life forms detected in Dexlabs Floor One: One."

"Scan the entire perimeter of Dexlabs!"

"Number of life forms detected within Dexlabs perimeters: One."

Dexter looked out the nearest shattered window at the cascade of golden fire that was falling from the sky.

She had brought down Fuse, Dexter thought, and saved Earth.

She was dead.

* * *

Billy sat in the middle of the rug in his living room, staring idly at the television, drooling slightly. Grim sat behind him, Billy's NanoCom attached to his reaping scythe.

Now that the war was at a stop, he had to open up the Resurrect 'Em databank. Doing so served dual purposes: One, he was able to empty the system, which meant getting everyone out and back into the plane of existence. Two, he could reanimate the broken human bodies of about a hundred thousand soldiers. Three, he got to see how many times each person was processed through the system, which was just a laugh.

Some of the numbers were modest. Others, Grim was surprised Dexter ever let them fight. Like that Cael Claw Girl. Chuckling to himself, he scrolled down the database to find her entry.

Cael Claw-Dexlabs Soldier-248

Grim's skeletal jaws worked themselves into a frown. The name was just that – the name of the soul in question. The second part was their rank and job, and the third part was how many times they'd been processed. But what he couldn't figure out for his afterlife was why her entry was blinking.

Grim reached across the sofa cushion and picked up the user's manual. "Flashing entry…flashing entry…" he muttered as he flipped through the pages. Billy shushed him from his spot in front of the TV, but Grim paid no attention to the annoying little brat. At last, he found the correct section, exclaiming when he did so. Again, Billy shushed him. Grim looked up in annoyance and read on:

'The flashing of an entry can mean one of two things. If every entry is flashing simultaneously, it means that the system filter needs to be replaced before any of the existing Entries can be processed.'

Well that was good to know, Grim thought. But it was _just_ her name. He continued.

'If, however, only a single entry is flashing, it simply means that the soul represented in the entry has been designated by the operator for the 'Automatic' function in the system, used for emergencies only.'

Automatic?

Grim looked up; even Billy had looked away from the television, which had fizzled out. Now both were staring at the collection of fusion green gas that was collecting in the middle of the room.

Grim yelped, pulling his hand away from his scythe as it began to spark at the base of the blade. The sparks ignited the gaseous vapor in the room, creating an explosion that forced itself out of every orifice of the room, cracking the walls and blowing the roof – indeed, the entire second story! – right off of the foundation of the house.

Fire curled out of the broken windows and smoke mushroomed into the sky.

When the force of the explosion started to ebb, he stood up, reattached his left arm, plucked Billy out of the wall and picked up his reaping scythe, the metal of which was searing hot, the wood scorched.

He looked around the demolished house and sighed. "Of course." He muttered, annoyed.

* * *

Blossom flew over Dexlabs as those words escaped Grim's mouth. There were Dexbots all rough the building, already hard at work putting everything right. Once Dexlabs was up and running again, they could advance into the rest of the world one hundred fold and start cleanup.

She flew onto the building through the skylight, which had not yet been repaired. She knew the building well, by this time. She knew that the Dexbot assembly line was the entirety of the seventy third floor, and she knew that Dexter would be there, overlooking the process.

She floated halfway up the observatory catwalk then landed so that he would know she was coming up behind him.

Blossom watched him as she approached. He was bent slightly forward, his hands clasped behind his back, head bowed looking at the progress of the assembly line below. She could see his head twitch slightly in her direction as she approached, but he did not look up at her.

Before long, she stood next to him, leaning forward against the railing. "Dex, come to Hero Square. We won. Everyone's celebrating and it's all thanks to you." She said gently.

His head suddenly snapped up, he looked right at her. "This is not a time of celebration." He said, stiffly.

Blossom grabbed his hands from behind his back. "Whatever happened on that planet, whatever happened to her, she did it for you, Dex. For all of us. You spent an entire year mourning over the accident. How long can you stay sad?"

The boy genius swallowed hard, choking back the rising grief of war and guilt and loss. He was far too proud to be scared in the midst of the war, because he knew he was their inspiration. He refused to show grief after the accident because he needed a clear head to execute military strategy. But he stood there, looking at Blossom – no older than he was, who had shown the pain of losing her sister for so many months – and Dexter realized: he was still a child. No matter how intelligent he was, he hadn't been ready for this war, despite what he'd told himself in the last year. He wasn't ready to experience all the loss that he had, the fear and the stress.

He shuddered and fell upon her neck. Blossom returned the gesture, consoling him, knowing how he felt. All the pent up tension and anxiety, they were all surfacing, all being felt at once.

After a moment, the two separated. Dexter removed his goggles and wiped his eyes with the back of his glove, looking up at her with a weak smile of gratitude. "How silly of me," he muttered, embarrassed now, though he could see tears in her eyes as well. "Perhaps we _should_ go to Hero Square." He said.

Blossom smiled back at him and the two left the assembly line.

The war was won, but the crisis was far from over. Yes, Dexter had lost a friend. But that didn't give him permission to abandon the rest of the world. There was still work to do. He had to keep going.

Blossom's dainty fingers laced between his.

She brought him to exactly the last place he wanted to be: Sector V, addressing the multitudes of cheering soldiers who had just witnessed the explosion of Planet Fusion. The crowds were dense, all hooting and hollering as the remains of the alien threat smoldered in the sky.

People congratulated, hugged and clapped Dexter on the back as he made his way up to the podium at the forefront of the crowd. He lifted a hand to silence them, bending over slightly to speak into the microphone. "Soldiers of Earth: It has been one year, one month and twenty eight days since Planet Fusion arrived in our sky. Each and every one of you have fought valiantly, pushing through despite no promise of victory. But this victory has come at a cost. There are parts of our planet that may never be recovered. Memories we cannot erase. Battle scars that will not heal." He paused, looking sideways at Blossom. She egged him on with a gently nod. "I will admit, our safety system was not… perfect. Soldiers have fallen. Statues shall be erected in honor of those who gave their lives to save the whole of Earth. But we _must_ persevere. There is still so much to be done. Teams will be reorganized at the end of the next month. Our new goal is clean up and restoration. But until then, everyone is discharged. I think some time to catch up with our families is long overdue. Dismissed." Dexter stepped down; cheers erupted through the square.

Even he would go home to his family for a day or two. Responsibility or not, he still missed his mom and dad and even Dee Dee and her hyper, energetic demeanor.

The cheering died down to almost non-existence; someone else must have gotten up to talk.

"Don't stop on my behalf. Let's hear it for Earth's savior: Dexter, our own resident Boy Genius!"

The cheers grew exponentially, louder than before, but that's not what he strained to hear. He froze, facing Blossom who wore a look of pure shock, straining to hear the faint chuckle that echoed through the speaker systems.

He turned.

There before him was a girl in a tattered Holosuit and an oversized blue sweat jacket: Cael.

"Fuse told us you were dead." He reported. "And then the planet exploded and I thought for sure…" he stopped, his excitement transforming. His fist clenched and he swung it around to connect with her side. "_Why didn't you warp back before detonation? I gave you SPECIFIC instructions-_"

She shrugged. "I couldn't," she said, leading them off of the stage, to a saner, quieter room off the side. "NanoCom got wrecked in a fight up there. I was able to revive it, but it activated the detonation command automatically."

Dexter stared at her. He was confused, which was rare for him. The NanoCom was the lifeline that linked all the soldiers through to the Resurrect 'Em. Cael's had been detonated – exploded – _useless_! "But you… You're impossible! The NanoCom… It was destroyed! How could you have been rerouted through the Resurrect 'Em?"

Cael smiled tiredly. After being exploded, she had every right to be. "Rex never had to go through the system, because Providence keeps him locked away. No one ever knew that Grim's system could latch onto Nanites." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together and Dexter could hear the crackle of electricity.

Dexter could feel a wave of relief sweep over him. This was unprecedented. No one had ever dared mingle the Nanites with Grim's Scythe, for fear of what the results would be. Disastrous, no one had had a doubt about that.

"Oh, and I think we owe Billy a new house."

Right. Disastrous. Dexter sighed. There would be plenty of time for that. Right now, they all had some catching up to do.


End file.
